Maharashtra govt impasse: RSS mouthpiece hits out at Shiv Sena

MUMBAI: The Marathi mouthpiece of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’S ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has attacked the Shiv Sena over the delay in the government formation in Maharashtra amid a deadlock between the two parties over the issue of sharing the chief minister’s post.

In an editorial on Monday, Tarun Bharat, the mouthpiece, said that the state’s people would not pardon the Shiv Sena and its leadership if the BJP fails to lead an alliance government in Maharashtra. It lashed out at Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut for saying his party can form a government with the help of non-bjp parties.

“The mandate... is for the BJPSena alliance and the BJP emerged as...[the single largest party with 105] MLAS [members of legislative assembly] while the Sena has been reduced to 56 seats,” the editorial said. It questioned how the Sena could stake claim for the chief minister’s post with these numbers.

Without naming Raut, it called him a “joker” and said “his attempts to portray a picture that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is isolated in the BJP is nothing but pure entertainment”.

Raut, Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP and executive editor of its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, has been at the forefront of voicing his party’s demands over equal distribution of power and sharing the CM post with the BJP in the next Maharashtra government. He mocked the BJP on multiple occasions by asking questions like “Itna sannata kyon hai bhai...” (why is there so much silence), using the popular dialogue from Bollywood blockbuster “Sholay”, on the economic slowdown.