After the BJP president Amit Shah, on Sunday, told party workers in Maharashtra to prepare for a solo fight in the 2019 general election, Shiv Sena struck out on Monday.
Though BJP has not called off the alliance, Shah reportedly told party workers that they should prepare to fight next year’s national polls alone in Maharashtra. This is BJP’s toughest stand against the Sena. The two parties have been allies for nearly three decades and fought the 2014 general elections together. However, they fought the assembly elections a few months later, alone.
Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in an interview published in the party’s mouthpiece Saamana on Monday said “I’m fighting for the common man’s dream, not for (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi’s dream.”
“We don’t have only one friend. We are friends of the public,” said Thackeray in the interview, adding, “I will hunt but don’t need to shoot from anyone else’s shoulder. Nor will I need a gun for the hunt.”
BJP was left red-faced when Shiv Sena, its oldest ally, stayed away from a no-confidence debate in parliament on Friday and refused to vote in its support.
A day before the no-trust motion, Amit Shah had called Uddhav Thackeray, after which the BJP had claimed that the Sena was completely on board and would support the government. The Sena reportedly even put out a whip ordering all party MPs to be present in parliament for the debate and vote.
But the next morning, just before the no-confidence motion was taken up, the Sena declared that its chief Uddhav Thackeray had decided that the party would stay away.
The overnight change of heart embarrassed the BJP more so when an editorial in Saamana editorial said, “those ruling the country are butchers who save animals but kill humans.”
The Sena rubbed it in by praising Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who launched a searing attack on PM Modi during the debate and then walked across the house to give him a surprise hug that rattled the BJP.
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