According to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), 22 MLAs and 9 MPs from the opposing Shiv Sena are feeling suffocated as a result of the BJP’s “step-motherly treatment” and may leave the organisation headed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
An editorial in the Shiv Sena (UBT) mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ referred to the Shinde group MLAs and MPs as “hens and cocks” imprisoned in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) coop and that it cannot be said when they could be slaughtered, latching onto Shiv Sena MP Gajanan Kirtikar’s claim that his party was receiving step-motherly treatment.
It said that the Shiv Sena, headed by Uddhav Thackeray, cut connections with the BJP in 2019 because of the same “step-motherly treatment” that had become intolerable, as well as for the sake of its safety and self-respect.
In order to create a government in Maharashtra, the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena left the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2019 and teamed up with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party.
After the Sena split last year, Shinde teamed up with the BJP to take over as chief minister.
The Lok Sabha representative from Mumbai, Kirtikar, said on Friday, “We are a part of the NDA….Therefore, we should carry out our job in accordance with that, and (NDA) elements should get a (appropriate) status. We believe that we are receiving stepmother-like treatment.
According to a Tuesday editorial in Saamana, the Shinde group’s “22 MLAs and nine MPs are feeling suffocated because of the step-motherly treatment by the BJP and they have developed the mindset to quit the group.”
It said that once the Shiv Sena MPs and MLAs allied themselves with the BJP and “betrayed” the Thackerays, their “love affair” soured after a year, and there are now rumours of their divorce.
Last week, Kirtikar said that the Shiv Sena will continue to work with the BJP in Maharashtra even beyond the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Shiv Sena fielded candidates in 22 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.
According to the editorial, the BJP would only offer the Shiv Sena five to seven seats out of the 22 seats it has requested to run for in the Lok Sabha.
The Shiv Sena’s assertion that it would contest 22 seats is absurd, according to the Marathi newspaper.
The editorial, which singled out Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, said that he had turned into Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s “driver” and that as a result, the BJP leader now had absolute control over the state government.
