Revision as of 08:37, 25 January 2018

BJP- Shiv Sena alliances

Ambarish Mishra, Sena won’t ally with BJP in 2019 polls, January 24, 2018: The Times of India

Seats, contested and won- Lok Sabha elections (1991-2014) and Assembly elections (1990-2014)
From: Ambarish Mishra, Sena won’t ally with BJP in 2019 polls, January 24, 2018: The Times of India

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Seats, contested and won- Lok Sabha elections (1991-2014) and Assembly elections (1990-2014)

Shiv Sena, BJP’s oldest — and for 25 years its sturdiest — ally, announced it would go solo for Lok Sabha and Maharashtra polls in 2019. While Sena’s newly constituted national executive passed a resolution to this effect, Sena president

“This regime thrives only on hollow ad campaigns. It needs to be brought down,” Uddhav said at a party conclave that saw his son, Aaditya, being elevated to the status of a ‘neta’ in Sena.

Sena to poach Hindutva radicals

Though Sena is not withdrawing from the Modi government or the BJP-led state government as of now, its stand, and especially Uddhav’s call to defeat the Modi regime, is certain to worsen Sena-BJP ties, rocky since mid-2014, and raise doubts over Sena’s role in the BJP-led NDA at the Centre.

Though the allies fought the 2014 LS polls unitedly, Matoshree snapped ties with BJP for the October 2014 state elections, only to later join the Devendra Fadnavis-led government as BJP’s junior partner. The tie-up came apart again for the 2017 Mumbai civic polls where BJP fell just 2 seats short of the Sena tally.

Uddhav also spelt out Sena’s expansion plan with militant Hindutva as its plank. Addressing party functionaries at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel stadium in Worli, he said, “We will expand across the country. Hereafter we will contest every election in every state with Hindutva as our mantra,” he said.

Uddhav’s gameplan is to poach on the radical quotient in the BJP- R-S-S ahead of the 2019 polls by flaunting aggressive Hindutva and projecting BJP as a feeble party with little or no legitimate claim to Hindutva, said Sena watchers. They pointed out that a section in the Sangh Parivar is unhappy with the Modi regime for being “soft” on issues such as Kashmir, Ram Janmabhoomi, Article 370 and even triple talaq.

The Sena also passed a resolution to win “at least 25 LS seats (out of 48 in the state) and 150 assembly seats (out of 288)” in 2019.

Raising the Kashmir issue, Uddhav said the nation needed an aggressive leader like Sardar Patel. In a dig at PM Modi who routinely heaps praise on India’s first home minister, he said, “Had the Sardar been alive today, he would have resolved the Kashmir issue and also the Pakistan issue once and for all.”

Uddhav also criticised Modi for taking Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Ahmedabad for a kite-flying session recently. “Why Ahmedabad? The PM should have taken his Israeli counterpart to Srinagar to hoist the national flag there,” he said.

Accusing the Modi government of issuing “hollow threats” to Pakistan, Uddhav said those in power have no empathy for Indian soldiers killed along the border and in terror attacks. “It’s high time the Pakistan problem is put to an end forever. But our leaders have become ‘mastawaal’ (power-drunk and reckless),” he said.

He also slammed Union minister Nitin Gadkari for being critical of the Navy and chided state BJP minister Chandrakant Patil for praising the Kannada language in Belgaum, an area at the centre of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border row. “Patil should have spared a thought for Marathis who have been living along the border,” said Uddhav, indicating that along with Hindutva, the Sena would also sharpen its Marathi plank.