Mumbai, Sep 5 (IANS): Virtually sounding the assembly poll bugle, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah Thursday accused the ruling Congress-NCP of scam after scam and "looting Maharashtra" over the past 15 years.

He alleged that scams collectively worth more than Rs.11 lakh crore, which could have been utilized for the welfare of the entire state for five years and money would still be left.

"It is a government of thugs...They looted Maharashtra...They must be thrown out," Shah thundered at a Vijay Sankalp Rally, of party activists at Shanmukhanda Hall Thursday evening.

He claimed that on account of these scams - irrigation scam, Adarsh scam, food scam, land scam and many other scams - Maharashtra has been shamed by the Congress in front of the whole country, "so it must be uprooted" from here.

"We are all aware what happened to Congress-NCP in the last Lok Sabha elections. I want you all to work and better that performance in the Maharashtra Assembly polls. In Lok Sabha, they could not get a Leader of Opposition, that must be repeated here...," he said amid a thunderous round of applause.

But, Shah warned that this was nothing "to laugh about".

"There should be pain in your hearts...Use this angst to throw out this government and establish a BJP-alliance government in Maharashtra," he urged.

Taking a potshot at Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, he said that if he (Rahul) had campaigned more, they would not have got even 44 (Lok Sabha) seats, which is why some Maharashtra ministers wanted him to keep quiet.

He also extended an open invitation asking "good leaders from all political parties" to join and strengthen the BJP.

Later Thursday, in a major bid to defuse tensions between the two saffron allies Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party, Shah will meet Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latter's Bandra residence.

Prior to the meeting, Shah visited the Bal Thackeray memorial at Shivaji Park and paid homage to the founder of the Shiv Sena.

The Mumbai-born Shah arrived here on his first visit to the city after taking over as party chief and was accorded a grand welcome by thousands of party activists and top leaders at the Mumbai Airport.

In his brief address, Shah said that the second phase of making 'Congress-mukt Bharat' would be launched from Maharashtra where Swaraj was started by the Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

"This is the worst and most corrupt government ruling in Maharashtra for the past 15 years...We shall remove all Congress governments across the country right upto Tamil Nadu," Shah thundered to a resounding applause.

Shortly afterwards, Shah attended a meeting of the BJP core committee at the residence of Leader of Opposition in state legislative council Vinod Tawde and later went for lunch at the residence of city MP Poonam Mahajan, (daughter of the late Pramod Mahajan and niece of Gopinath Munde).

He also visited Ganeshotsav marquees in Lalbaug, Bandra and Gilder tank, besides performing a 'Ganesh maha-aarti' and attended an exhibition on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a nearby ground.