Raut dares BJP to give up 105 seats, fight polls again
MUMBAI: A day after Union home minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah dared chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to resign and fight elections again, the Shiv Sena on Monday delivered its comeback challenging the BJP to give up its 105 seats in the assembly and see how many it would win without the support of the Shiv Sena and Central agencies.
Sena leader Raut said in the national capital, “We dare them (BJP) that all 105 legislators (who won in the 2019 elections) must resign. Had it not been for the Shiv Sena’s support, they would not have got this number. We dare them to resign and get re-elected in the 105 seats.” “You are roaming around with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Maharashtra. We dare you to keep them away and then fight us. We will take attacks head on; do not backstab,” Raut said in a thinly-veiled reference to cases registered by the three agencies against leaders of the ruling coalition, Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
Responding to Shah’s accusation that the Shiv Sena compromised on Hindutva for power, Raut said, “The Shiv Sena has never let go of Hindutva and it will never do so. In 2014, a ‘staunch Hindutvawadi party’ like ours was cast aside for the sake of complete power. Amit Shah must tell everyone who was it that wanted to keep the Shiv Sena out... He (Shah) also said that we should contest solo. I wish to tell him that we contested solo in 2014 against an immense wave of money, power and government power. We fought well under Uddhav
Thackeray’s leadership and got victory.”
Shah on Sunday accused the Sena of betraying the BJP for power and called the MVA a ‘punctured rickshaw’ whose wheels were headed in three different directions. “They (Sena) sat in the lap of the ones they have been fighting against for two generations,” he said. Reacting to Shah’s criticism, Raut said that he understood the ‘frustration’ of the BJP leaders as the central agencies failed to topple the MVA government. Raut recalled that when the alliance was announced at a venue in Worli in 2019, both parties used the phrase, “50:50 powersharing”. “What does it mean? The 50:50 power-sharing (formula) included the chief minister’s post as well; do not lie, at least not in Pune, which is Shivaji Maharaj’s land,” Raut said.
BJP state president Chandrakant Patil said that the state of affairs in Maharashtra is so bad that people would react to it if there is an election now. “Amit Shah said that if the Shiv Sena is ready, they can announce polls and see the results for themselves.