BJP should focus on Kashmir and Darjeeling: Sena

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena taunted its ally, the BJP, saying the party should focus on bringing stability to sensitive areas such as Kashmir and Darjeeling, rather than worrying about mid-term elections and completing a full five-year term in Maharashtra.

“Whatever has to happen with the mid-term election in Maharashtra will happen. According to Amit Shah, there will be a BJP government even after the election. A president of their choice will be elected. They will contest every election and win, but will we win the fight in Kashmir? Will the lives of soldiers be saved and will Kashmir remain on the Indian map without the sacrifice of soldiers? The country needs answers to these questions,” read an editorial in the party’s mouthpiece, Saamana.

“Shah and his party are more worried about a mid-term election. We give them our best wishes. We are more worried about what will happen to Kashmir and Darjeeling, which is burning owing to violence, rather than a mid-term election,” read the editorial.

The party said the BJP should not try to take political advantage of the situation in Darjeeling owing to political differences with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. The BJP and Sena’s relationship has been choppy of late. The Sena openly supported the farmers’ agitation in Maharashtra, protesting and bitterly criticising the BJP. NEWDELHI: Ask any average Bengali and they will tell you that they are dead against Gorkhaland. Their primary objection to the creation of a separate state is essentially the possible loss of the hill resort of Darjeeling to the new entity.

This makes their visceral opposition also frivolous. When East Coast Railways was carved out of the behemoth South Eastern Railway as a separate zone in 2003, the Bengali bhadraloks were equally mortified. The Odiyas wanted it to redeem their regional pride that they suspected