MUMBAI: A day after the BJP snapped its ties with its ally of 27 years, the Shiv Sena, the party on Thursday provided a private security guard to its spokesperson Madhav Bhandari fearing a strong reaction from angry Shiv Sainiks.
Party workers believe that Bhandari’s comments on relations with the Shiv Sena had triggered the separation. Interestingly, Bhandari, a full- time BJP official with RSS roots, is “credited” for his involvement in the party’s two historic break- ups. First in 1979, when its precursor Jan Sangh had parted ways from the Janata Party resulting in the fall of Morarji Desai Government and now in 2014 when it has isolated the Shiv Sena.
Bhandari, then a journalist with Jan Sangh’s mouthpiece Tarun Bharat, had penned an article based on the party’s stalwart Jagannathrao Joshi’s thoughts on Janata Party.
Joshi had come down heavily on the other constituents of the Janata Party, an alliance of six parties, for asking the Jan Sangh leaders not to maintain relations with the RSS. “Jagannathrao called Madhav, who was in his 20s at the time one fine morning, and told him that he wanted to end relations with the Janata Party. For the next one hour, Jagannathrao was talking and Madhav was taking notes.
The article was published in the next issue of Tarun Bharat. It served as a base for the break- up,” a senior BJP official said. On September 14, Bhandari announced that the BJP workers did not want to communicate with the Shiv Sena till the latter accepted its demand for 135 out of 288 seats.
His comments made Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray furious. Uddhav rejected the BJP demand with a straight face and ensured that the BJP reopened the negotiations.
It created tension in relations between both the parties and finally the long-standing relationship ended on a bitter note. “Whatever I said was my party’s stand. It was not my personal opinion. I had uttered those words as the party spokesperson,” Bhandari said. He, however, denied that his comments led to the separation.
“Our party president has already made it clear that the Shiv Sena was eyeing the Chief Minister’s post and had taken a rigid stand on seat-sharing,” he said. Another BJP official said that the party had also asked Bhandari during the 2009 Assembly elections to provoke the Shiv Sena into a break-up. “
Then state BJP president Nitin Gadkari and senior leader, the late Gopinath Munde had asked Madhav to issue a statement, which could have hurt the Shiv Sena. They changed their mind after 20 minutes and the alliance continued at that time,” the official recalled.