Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday raked up the row with its former ally Bharatiya Janata Party and said that his party had not asked for much ahead of the government formation in the state.
“They [BJP] did not keep their promise made to us before the Lok Sabha elections last year,” Thackeray said in an interview with Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana. “Shiv Sena had decided to go solo in Lok Sabha elections, but the BJP leadership approached us for the alliance and we honoured their request. What did we expect in turn? Did I ask for the moon and stars? I only expected the promise given to us be honoured.”
Thackeray said that if the BJP had kept its promise to the Shiv Sena, he would not have occupied the chief ministerial post. He said that he had promised his father Balasaheb Thackeray to “place a Shiv Sainik in the chief minister’s chair” and had decided to go to any extent to fulfill that promise. He added that this was the first step, adding that he will fulfill every promise made to his father.
“I even went for filing of nomination of Narendrabhai [Modi] and Amitbhai [Shah] to Ahmedabad and Varanasi,” he said. “I did this for Hindutva and even campaigned for the alliance.”
Thackeray also responded to BJP’s allegation that he had made compromises with the Hindutva agenda and gave up the party’s principles to ally with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress. The chief minister, in turn, questioned the BJP’s alliances with Janata Dal (United) and Peoples Democratic Party and asked if the party had compromised then.
“Have I converted to some other religion?” he said. “One should not be under the impression that theirs is the final word [on Hindutva]. Has it been set in stone that what they [BJP] say is Hindutva? They talk about our ideology, but let me ask, how many ideologies have come together in NDA government at the Centre?”
Thackeray hit out at the BJP for tying up with PDP to form a government in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2014 and said that it had “talks with terrorists”.
The BJP had poached leaders from the Congress and the NCP for political gains and therefore had no right to criticise the Shiv Sena for forming an alliance with the two parties, Thackeray said. The chief minister added that politicians, who had attacked Modi, were given entry into the BJP and the prime minister campaigned for them. “What type of morality is this?” he said. “We do not need to learn ethics from them.”
The BJP has 105 MLAs in the state Assembly, the Sena has 56 while the NCP and the Congress have 56 and 44 legislators each. The BJP and the Shiv Sena had contested the state elections together in October but fell out after the results were announced due to disagreement over power-sharing. As a result, the Shiv Sena formed an alliance with the Congress and the NCP.
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