The confusion was palpable as Naik in his address to his supporters, who had gathered here from far-off places, did not say a word against the Shiv Sena, its leaders or the supremo, Bal Thackeray. He even refused to call Shivshakti a political outfit and referred to it as a social platform.

Making vague noises about the need to tackle communalism he said: ``We have decided to take up only social causes and whether we will go political will only be decided by the future course of events.'' Naik also said nothing about the structure of the organisation and the people who will be running it. He did make some oblique references to Sena, but that wasn't quite what his supporters were expecting from him.While asking his workers to remove a portrait of his, he said: ``Shivshakti will not promote a personality cult...so, no cut-outs and shakha boards will be allowed.'' Though nobody had any doubt about what he was driving at, they all kept expecting him to come out openly against the Thackerays. He didn't.

The closest he came to saying anything against the party which he has accused of humiliating him , was at the post-launch press conference. When asked if there was a move to woo him back to Sena he said: ``No self respecting individual will go back after the humiliation I was put through.'' Though Naik admitted he had met opposition leader Sharad Pawar recently at Delhi, he denied that the latter had invited him to join the Congress. He scoffed at threats by the Thackeray family to open files showing how he had amassed land and wealth in his tenure as a minister. ``I am least bothered about such charges,'' he said and added ``people know that for generations our family has been that of prosperousfarmers.''