PUNE: Though the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra is a coalition, it is primarily the Shiv Sena's government, party MP Sanjay Raut said here on Saturday.
The government is made up of three parties including the NCP and Congress, but it "belongs to the party who has the chief minister's post," he said, addressing Sena workers.
"This is our government because this is Uddhav Thackeray government. Everybody is ours, but Shiv Sena is above all. Every party needs Shiv Sena," Raut added.
Sena president Uddhav Thackeray was one of the "top five chief ministers in the country" and not a single BJP chief minister figures in this list, he claimed.
Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil on Saturday said his party would henceforth not contest polls in alliance with those who had betrayed it, an apparent reference to the Shiv Sena which walked out of a partnership several decades old and formed a government in the state with the NCP and Congress in 2019.
Speaking to reporters in Jalna, some 60 kilometres from here, Patil said the BJP was getting good response from the people of the state, and, therefore, there was no need to ally with people who got votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his efficient administration and then switched sides.
"We will not ally with those who got the chief minister's post with 56 seats in the Assembly (a reference to the Sena) or a party which got the deputy CM's post (NCP) with 54 seats, or with those who got the revenue minister's post with 44 seats (Congress)," Patil asserted.
"Whenever polls take place, we will ally with those who always stood by us, like Ramdas Athawale, Sadabahu Khot, Mahadev Jankar, Vinayak Mete, Vinay Kore etc," he added.
He also hit out at Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for constantly speaking about a third wave of COVID-19, adding that "as the second wave had declined, there was need to normalise life with precautions".