Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut on Monday claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party does not want the Maharashtra government led by Eknath Shinde to continue to be in power, The Indian Express reported.
The Shiv Sena had split in June after Shinde and 39 MLAs backing him rebelled against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition. The Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress were allies in the government. After more than a week of politcial drama, Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister on June 30 with the BJP’s backing.
On Monday, Raut said that Nationalist Congress Party leader Chhagan Bhujbal’s claims about talks being underway in Delhi to change the Maharashtra chief minister were true.
“I completely agree with him,” Raut said. “Everyone knows the reason behind this. Since becoming the chief minister, he [Shinde] has failed to achieve what the BJP wanted…They [the BJP] wanted to overthrow our government, they used him for that. That work is done now.”
He also claimed that Shinde has not given any political advantage to the BJP and was instead causing damage to the Maharashtra government. Raut’s remarks came a day after he told reporters in Jalgaon that the Shinde-BJP dispensation would collapse in the next 15 to 20 days.
In February, he had made similar predictions that the Shinde government would collapse in a fortnight.
On Sunday, he again claimed that a “death warrant” had been issued for the current government. “It is now to be decided who will sign it,” he said.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader added that his party was waiting for the long-pending decision of the Supreme Court on a petition seeking disqualification of 16 MLAs who had rebelled against Thackeray’s leadership.
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