Today’s editor of the day was Mumbai BJP’s President Ashish Shelar. He visited our newspaper office and interacted with the team and also answered questions asked by fellow journalists. One question was about the constant attack by BJP ally Shiv Sena on them, and still why this alliance continues? Shelar replied saying, we are swallowing the humiliation to run the government smoothly and deliver our promises of development. There are two ways, either part or continue, we are continuing because we respect people’s sentiments and the faith that they have shown.
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut made most stupid statement that Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is capable of leading the country and stressed that the Modi wave has faded, a statement that is not likely to go down well with the BJP. Sena is not used to play a second fiddle in Maharashtra politics but ever since the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP they are on the back foot and seem to have lost its standing. Uddhav Thackeray is a self-centered person. He and his party leaders need to understand that Uddhav is not Bala Saheb. Back in 90s when Bal Thackeray was the party president, BJP leaders used to visit Matoshree, the residence of Thackerays’ to discuss seat sharing, and Shiv Sena used to dictate terms of alliance. Those days have gone; this is another generation of BJP and also Sena. The equations have changed with time. The problem is, Uddhav Thackeray is unwilling to accept that BJP is more stronger than Shiv Sena these days, in Maharashtra too. He is in denial mode, he still thinks that BJP depends on Shiv Sena for the rural votes and BJP does not have base in rural Maharashtra. He still wants to command terms of alliance like his father, but he does not have that charisma, stand, popularity and mandate. Whatever Sena is today it’s because of Balasaheb’s supporters and love for the party that he founded.
In 2014 Maharashtra state assembly elections, Shiv Sena offered BJP 119 seats to contest, but BJP ended up winning 122+ seats, more than what Sena offered. This offended Uddhav Thackeray’s self-image so badly that now he is behaving like KEJRIWAL, criticising every move of government who is in alliance with them. Now, Sena leaders have gone to the extent of endorsing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and they feel that he is capable of leading the country. It is wrong to call him ‘Pappu’. All of sudden this close proximity with Congress is confusing.
In 2015, Sena had said that even 100 Rahul Gandhis cannot match Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “mega wave” and had mocked the Congress Vice President for his ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ jibe.
The Shiv Sena is a local political party of Maharashtra and it has no presence anywhere else in the country. There is high time, BJP must discontinue political alliance with Sena as this association is currently based only for mud throwing exercises of inexperienced leaders of local political parties. There is no leader in Sena today who can carry even one per cent of political sense of Balasaheb who had foresighted and associated with BJP years back. Sadly the corruption levels of Shiv Sena has blinded their political sense and leaders like Sanjay Raut does not even understand that demining BJP will not fetch any popularity or votes for the party. Moreover, Raut taking so much authority questions the integrity of Uddhav. The Shiv Sena leaders have lost all the public support after they were voted in local municipal elections of various municipalities of Maharashtra. This is definitely the last election in which Shiv Sena has some numbers in Maharashtra assembly and perhaps there will not be any respectable numbers in next elections for this party.
Shiv Sena leaders must understand that there is nothing like Modi wave in this country anymore. People of India have now realised after seeing work of PM Modi that he is the only capable leader in India unlike other politicians of any other political party who are only corrupt and not at all capable of doing any work for the nation or cities or towns, even in their own jurisdiction, so just forget about national level. The local political party Shiv Sena cannot ever be national political party and no one at national level has any respect for this party except they are at least associated with BJP and hence, people still listen to them. If BJP sever ties with Shiv Sena then there will perhaps be none to support them as after demise of Balasaheb, people have no more trust on the leadership of this political party.
The alliance won 1996 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Elections. Shiv Sena’s Manohar Joshi was elected the CM and BJP’s Gopinath Munde as Deputy CM. The NDA Govt of 1996–1999 was the same as the UPA govt of 2004–2014, in the sense that as Sonia Gandhi remote controlled the UPA govt, Balasaheb remote controlled the NDA govt. Further, when NDA lost in 1999, and then again in 2004 and 2009, BJP remained the younger brother in the alliance, with Sena dominating the opposition alliance. Important decisions of the alliance took place at Matoshree, where BJP leader Pramod Mahajan used to visit to discuss matters.
Time has changed. Leaders have changed. Shiv Sena lives under the illusion that it could still be the elder brother.
Modi wave swept the Lok Sabha in 2014. Out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, BJP and Shiv Sena contested in 24 and 20 seats and won in 23 and 18 seats respectively. The strike rate of BJP (23/24) was better than that of Shiv Sena (18/20). Everyone is aware of the fact that Shiv Sena could secure seats in regions like Marathwada and Vidarbha, only riding on the Modi wave. When the results were announced, BJP won 122, almost twice of Shiv Sena’s 63. In short BJP won three seats more than what they had been offered in the alliance. Naturally, Shiv Sena went mad. BJP even passed the floor test in the Assembly through voice vote and Devendra Fadnavis was elected CM, and Sena went even madder. However, as BJP was short of the numbers to form the government, after some tantrums Shiv Sena joined hands with BJP to form a Govt with 186 MLAs. BJP showed Sena its real place, by not only winning the elections with twice as much seats, but also by not giving the position of Deputy CM to Shiv Sena, a position which remains vacant till date.
Uddhav Thackeray is now doing what every ‘2nd ranker’ will do. Call the ‘1st ranker’ a bad person, cheater, make allegations and blabber nonsense. His statements have nothing to do with governance or any real issue for that matter. He is just getting personal against a rival, whom he couldn’t take down politically. Such stupid statements however are nothing to be worried about, as no one listens to him except for his ‘blind supporters’. He has one real misconception. He thinks that he can replace Balasaheb. He forgets two things – Uddhav is not Balasaheb and Amit Shah is not Pramod Mahajan.
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