Last Update: May 30, 2023, 13:54 IST
Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray (File Photo/PTI)
The Thackeray-led Shiv Sena joined hands with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party to form the government in Maharashtra in 2019 after walking out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) on Tuesday claimed that 22 MLAs and nine MPs of rival Shiv Sena are feeling suffocated due to the “step-motherly treatment” by the BJP and may leave the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led grouping. .
On Shiv Sena MP Gajanan Kirtikar’s comment that his party was being given step-motherly treatment, an editorial in the Shiv Sena (UBT) mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ called Shinde group MLAs and MPs imprisoned in the Bharatiya Janata Party jail as “chickens and called chickens. (BJP) Cop and it cannot be said when he may be killed.
It said the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (then undivided) broke ties with the BJP (in 2019) because of the same “step-motherly treatment”, which became intolerable, and also for its own safety and self-respect.
The Thackeray-led Shiv Sena joined hands with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party to form the government in Maharashtra in 2019 after walking out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Shinde had joined hands with the BJP to become the CM after the split in the Shiv Sena last year.
Kirtikar, a Lok Sabha member from Mumbai, said on Friday, “We are part of the NDA…so our work should be done accordingly and (NDA) constituents should get (appropriate) status.” We feel that we are being given step-motherly treatment.”
A Saamana editorial on Tuesday said “22 MLAs and nine MPs” of the Shinde group are feeling suffocated due to the step-motherly treatment by the BJP and have developed a mindset to leave the group.
It said Shiv Sena MPs and MLAs “betrayed” Thackeray and joined hands with the BJP, but within a year their “love affair” soured and there were talks of their divorce.
Kirtikar had said last week that the Shiv Sena had contested 22 Lok Sabha seats (out of a total of 48) in Maharashtra in 2019 and this arrangement with the BJP would continue in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as well.
The editorial claimed that the Shiv Sena has spoken of contesting 22 seats in the Lok Sabha, but the BJP will not give it more than five to seven seats. The Marathi daily said Shiv Sena’s claim that it will fight on 22 seats is laughable.
The editorial targeted Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, claiming that he has become Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s “chalak”, which means all powers of the state government rest with the BJP leader.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI,