A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah criticised Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, the Shiv Sena on Monday hit back at the BJP, accusing its former ally of using the saffron regional outfit as a ladder to climb in Maharashtra politics.
Shiv Sena Chief Spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut and Bharatiya Kamgar Sena President and Mumbai South MP Arvind Sawant spearheaded the latest attack on the BJP.
Sawant said that Shiv Sena was unfazed. “People who had cursed Shiv Sena have come and gone...Five generations of Thackeray gharana has worked for the people of Maharashtra,” he said.
He also said that the entire world knows that the Shiv Sena does not go back on its words.
Referring to the Shiv Sena-BJP meeting at Matoshree, Thackeray's private residence, in February, 2019, he said that during the press conference, the then chief minister and now Leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis, while announcing the seat-sharing arrangement for the Lok Sabha, had said that for Vidhan Sabha, there would be a “equal-power sharing”. “Why did it take him (Shah) over a year to speak up?” Sawant asked.
He said that the BJP had used the Shiv Sena as a ladder and with late Balasaheb's blessings to grow in Maharashtra politics.
In a tweet, Raut said, “In 1975 Rajni Patel and in the 90s similarly Murli Doera said that Shiv Sena will be wiped off ...Again in 2012 Prithviraj Chavan said the same thing and on both the occasions Shiv Sena came up even more stronger than earlier !”
Shah had accused Shiv Sena President and CM Uddhav Thackeray of compromising with the principles and ideals of its late founder Balasaheb Thackeray and allying with the Congress-NCP after ditching the BJP.
The home minister described the Maha Vikas Aghadi government as a “three-wheeler auto-rickshaw with the three wheels running in different directions – east, west and north and someone pulling it behind” and said, “Had we treaded on Shiv Sena's path in 2014, its existence would've been wiped off."