Amit Shah said, Uddhav Thackeray has betrayed the BJP and insulted the mandate.
Mumbai:
Union Home Minister and BJP chief strategist Amit Shah said at a meeting of party leaders in Mumbai today that Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray has betrayed the BJP and he “should be taught a lesson”. “In politics we can tolerate anything but not betrayal,” sources quoted Shah as saying at the meeting.
Sources said, Mr Shah had accused the former Maharashtra chief minister of being responsible for the split in his party and the events that followed. His “greed”, Mr Shah said, was the reason why a section of his party had turned against him, with Eknath Shinde brushing off the hand of any BJP in the rebellion and the subsequent Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by Mr. Thackeray. was the reason for the fall.
Uddhav Thackeray, Mr Shah said, not only betrayed the BJP, but also “betrayed the ideology and also insulted the mandate of the people of Maharashtra”.
Sources quoted him as saying that his party has shrunk today because of his “greed for power” and not because of the BJP. Shah said, “Today I want to say again that we never promised Uddhav Thackeray the chief minister’s post. We are people who do politics openly, not in closed rooms.”
Those who cheat in politics should be punished, Mr Shah had declared. He had said that this could be achieved through “Mission 150” for the upcoming civic polls in Mumbai.
The Brihanmumbai Corporation is the richest civic body in the country, which the BJP has been trying to control for a long time.
“Under Narendra Modi’s guidance, the BJP and the real Shiv Sena alliance should aim to win 150 seats in the BMC elections. The public is with the BJP led by Modi ji. Not with Uddhav Thackeray’s party which betrays the ideology,” he said. was.
Shiv Sena and BJP had an uneasy relationship since the break-up of the alliance over seat-sharing for the assembly elections in 2014, but they came together after the decision to bifurcate the state.
After the 2019 assembly elections, the Shiv Sena again fell out with the BJP and formed an alliance with Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
At the time, Mr Thackeray had accused the BJP of betrayal and alleged that they were expanding in Maharashtra at the expense of the Shiv Sena.
Earlier this year, he reiterated that his party “wasted 25 years in alliance with the BJP”.
He said, “We wholeheartedly supported the BJP to enable them to fulfill their national ambitions. The understanding was that they would be national while we would lead in Maharashtra. But we were betrayed and destroyed in our house. An attempt was made. So we had to retreat,” he had said.