NEW DELHI: Taking a dig at the Shiv Sena, Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said the state government thinks its war against the coronavirus is over and the only battle left to wage is against actress Kangana Ranaut.
He also said the state government may have made a "strategic mistake" while presenting the Maratha reservation case before the Supreme Court.
The apex court stayed the implementation of a 2018 state law, granting reservation to the Maratha community in education and jobs, earlier this week.
"The (Maharashtra) government thinks that the war against corona is over and the only battle that is left to wage is against Kangana. The entire government machinery is involved in fighting against Kangana. They can do whatever they want, but they should pay attention to the handling of the coronavirus situation in the state."
"Devote at least 50 percent of the time (in tackling the coronavirus) that you are spending in fighting against Kangana," Fadnavis told reporters here.
The former Maharashtra chief minister was in the national capital, before leaving for Bihar, where he has been given poll-related responsibilities by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Maharashtra, which has been severely hit by the pandemic, has been reporting the highest number of daily cases in the country.
The Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra, which also has the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress as coalition partners, is facing criticism over demolitions at Ranaut's office in Mumbai's Bandra by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) earlier this week, at a time when the actress was involved in a verbal spat with the Sena.
The BMC is controlled by the Sena. Ranaut courted controversy after she recently likened Mumbai to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and said she feared the city police more than the "movie mafia".
Fadnavis described the apex court's decision on the Maratha reservation as "very unfortunate and shocking".
"The Tamil Nadu government's law (on reservation) has not stayed and ours was. We have to assess whether we were able to put forth our stand strongly and convince the court that the circumstances of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are similar," he said.
Fadnavis said the state government should request for the setting up of a Constitution bench to hear the matter an urge the bench that as the court has not stayed Tamil Nadu's law on the reservation, it should apply the same principles in the case of Maharashtra.