Mumbai: The Shiv Sena (UBT) on Wednesday claimed that overconfidence led to the Congress’ defeat in Haryana and said the party relies on allies in weak regions but ignores them in its strongholds.
A day after the BJP won a third consecutive term in Haryana, UBT MP Sanjay Raut hinted that the poll outcome could have been different had Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accommodated allies and cobbled up an alliance.
“Wherever Congress is weak it takes help from regional parties, but where it thinks it is strong, the Congress assigns no importance to regional parties,” Raut told reporters.
Rejecting talks that the Haryana poll verdict would have any bearing on the upcoming Maharashtra election, Raut once again appealed to the Maha Vikas Aghadi allies to declare a chief ministerial face for the contest.
He argued that the allies won in Jammu and Kashmir as National Conference leader Omar Abdullah was the face of the opposition.
The NC-Congress alliance secured a majority in the assembly in the three-phased election, with the NC emerging as the single largest party with 42 seats. Congress won six seats.
Describing the Haryana polls results “unfortunate”, Raut pointed out that the Jammu and Kashmir election was won by the INDIA bloc.
“Had Haryana polls contested by INDIAbloc and seats allocated to Samajwadi Party, Aam Aadmi Party, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT), such a scenario would have helped the alliance, but Congress thought the battle would be one-sided and it would win on its own," Raut said.
However, state CongressPresident Nana Patole said that his party does not pay heed to the statement of Raut.
“We don’t give much importance to the statement of Sanjay Raut. What can we say about those who don’t understand the difference between Haryana and Maharashtra,” he said.
BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis took a dig at the infighting in the MVA alliance. “NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Uddhav Thackeray and the Congress were fully prepared to attack the BJP after the Haryana election result. But now they have understood that the mood of the country has changed. The Haryana election results show that the fake narrative has ended, now people are behind the BJP. Those who used to say ‘hum saath saath hai’ are now saying ‘hum aapke hain kaun,’” Fadanvis said.
