BJP National President J.P. Nadda. Photo:Special arrangement
Accusing former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray of stabbing the BJP “in the back” and compromising ideology for considerations of power, BJP national president J.P. Nadda on Monday said that Mr. Thackeray had got a fitting reply after the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis duo toppled the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by him.
Addressing a public meeting in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district, Mr. Nadda reiterated that before the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election, it was decided that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance would operate on the principle of “Delhi mein Narendra…Maharashtra mein Devendra” (Narendra Modi as Prime Minister at the Centre, Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister of Maharashtra), and the Shiv Sena under Mr. Thackeray had apparently consented to it at the time.
He alleged that after the election results, however, Mr. Thackeray said otherwise and stabbed the BJP in the back by allying with the ideologically opposed Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress.
“However, one should understand that in politics, power only gravitates towards the truth. So, the unnatural alliance [the MVA government] did not last long. Uddhav Thackeray supported those against whom former RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) Sarsanghchalak Balasaheb Deoras fought all his life,” Mr. Nadda said, rhetorically asking BJP workers in the audience whether “such people should be forgiven”.
Mr Nadda was addressing a ‘Vijay Sankalp’ rally in Chandrapur. The rally is ostensibly part of the BJP’s plan to win 18 “difficult” Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP failed to retain Chandrapur in 2019.
Alleging that Mr. Thackeray had allegedly “hurt” Maharashtra’s cultural sentiments by “stopping” the Ganesh Utsav and Dahi Handi programmes, Mr. Nadda said that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were now taking Maharashtra towards development.
The MVA government under Mr. Thackeray had temporarily forbidden any festivities owing to the dire COVID-19 pandemic situation at the time.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nadda also targeted Mr. Thackeray over his “silence” in the alleged lynching of three sadhus in Palghar district in April 2020.
“Uddhav, the son of [Shiv Sena founder] Bal Thackeray took a step back by not handing over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under pressure from the Congress and NCP,“ alleged Mr. Nadda, while alleging the tripartite MVA was “three shops of corruption”.
Mr. Nadda also referred to the BJP’s “DBT” facilitating “direct benefit transfer” to the people, and claimed the MVA was into “dealership-brokerage-transfer”.
Lauding Mr. Modi’s leadership and handling of international affairs, the BJP leader claimed that India under Mr. Modi had “become a lender, not a borrower” as the COVID-19 pandemic had shown.
Mr. Nadda further claimed that Mr. Modi had spoken to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and “halted” the Russia-Ukraine war in order to safely evacuate thousands of Indian students stranded in Ukraine.
