Mumbai: Just two days after they decided to join hands, war has broken out between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena over the post of chief minister. The senior Sena minister Ramdas Kadam took strong objection to the statement of BJP minister Chandrakant Patil, who had said on Wednesday that the CM post would go to the party with maximum seats.
Kadam claimed that the BJP had already committed during the talks that CM post would be shared by both parties for equal duration. If the BJP is backtracking, the Sena should snap ties with them, he said.
Even before the two estranged allies decided to once again tie the poll knot, the political remarriage of convenience is once again headed towards a split. Kadam, while speaking to the media, contended that the Sena had agreed to the alliance with the BJP after its party president Amit Shah agreed to each sharing the CM’s post for half the term.
He said, “If the BJP does not want to fulfil the commitment it has made, it is free to break the pre-poll alliance right away.” He further disclosed that the Sena agreed for the alliance on two conditions, one being the scrapping of the Nanar oil refinery project and the other being the sharing of the CM’s post.
Patil’s statement was unwarranted as the BJP president had given the Sena a commitment to that effect. He further said, “It is well-known how blank ballot papers were cast in 2001 as votes were not cast in anybody’s favour. Hence now it has been decided to share the Chief Minister’s post for two and half years each.”
In a complete about turn, the Sena, in an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamna, remarked that although Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s development book has improved since 2014 and now, he has sister Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra’s support, their leadership cannot be compared to the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
