Nagpur, Jan 4 (UNI) Taking a dig at Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's recent advice to Marathis to speak in their mother tongue, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader R R Patil today said ''the days of playing an emotional card before elections are over.'' Although Mr Thackeray's statement, urging Marathi people to take a pledge to speak only in their language, has come on the eve of the civic polls in Maharashtra, it will not have an impact on the polls, Mr Patil said while speaking to reporters here shortly before leaving for a short tour of Nagpur district to campaign.

Wondering what Mr Thackeray would say to the people in other states where the Shiv Sena had its units, Mr Patil asked, ''Don't the other parties in Maharashtra also belong to the Marathi people?'' Mr Patil replied in the negative when asked if the failure of the NCP and the Congress to strike an alliance for the forthcoming civic polls in the state would benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena alliance. The saffron alliance has ''neither the capacity nor the strength'' to exploit the situation, he remarked.

There is no use blaming anyone for the fact that the NCP and the Congress will be contesting the elections separately, Mr Patil said. ''After all, both the parties have the right to fight the polls on their own strength,'' he said.

UNI