MUMBAI: While stating that former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s claim of a proposal from Shiv Sena to form a government to keep BJP away from power in 2014 “is devoid of logic”, Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana on Wednesday said while lashing out at the BJP for its “variety of masks”.
“The Congress was thrashed out in Maharashtra in the 2014 election under the leadership of Prithviraj Chavan. Congress then did not have a ‘voice’. The question of going to Chavan with the proposal to form a government does not arise,” the editorial said while refuting Chavan’s claim that after the 2014 Maharashtra polls, Shiv Sena and NCP had approached him to form a coalition government to stop the BJP. But the Congress had rejected the demand immediately.
The editorial from the Sena mouthpiece, however, also observed that its tie-up with the Congress and NCP after last year’s assembly elections materialized because NCP Chief Sharad Pawar didn’t allow “political manoeuvring” even by BJP top brass succeed and that the Congress president Sonai Gandhi didn’t reject the alliance proposal.
The editorial also hit out at the BJP blaming it for “cruelly breaking off the alliance with Shiv Sena”.
“In 2014, the true face of BJP was exposed which the whole country saw... without thinking about Hindus, division of Hindu votes, relations of 25 years, the BJP cruelly broke off the alliance with Shiv Sena. This was the first mask of BJP that came off,” the editorial said.
While dubbing the BJP as “factory for manufacturing masks”, the editorial said, in 2014 “NCP’s Praful Patel came forward and extended unconditional support to BJP to form the government. Here, the second mask of the BJP came off. It can be safely said that all these things were planned in advance. When all this was unfolding, the Shiv Sena was not hiding behind any mask.”