Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut (Express Photo by Ganesh Shirsekar)
Slamming Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on the Nanar project, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said on Sunday that though the current government was running on Sena’s support, it was living a “post-divorce” life.
It was compulsory for the BJP to take Sena’s support in 2014, and now it is Sena’s compulsion not to be with the BJP in 2019, Raut stated in his weekly column Rokhthok published in Saamana, Sena’s mouthpiece. Raut, in his article, stated that after Industries Minister Subhash Desai cancelled the land acquisition notification for the Nanar project, there was no need for the CM to express anger on it immediately. “Though the state government is running on Sena’s support, it is living a post-divorce life,” said Raut, the executive editor of Saamana.
He added that the issue could have been discussed in the cabinet meeting. “It is a dictatorship to not allow the ministers to take decisions on their departments and not talking to people,” said the Sena MP. He added that, from BJP chief Amit Shah to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, all are now talking about having an alliance with Sena in 2019. “It was BJP’s compulsion to take Sena’s support to run the government in 2014. It is now Sena’s compulsion to not be with the BJP in 2019 and the BJP’s arrogance is responsible for it,” he said.
He said those who had voted for the BJP in the state and Modi and Shah at the Centre were not “bulls or donkeys”, they were citizens. Democracy dies when the government’s ‘mann ki baat’ is forced on public opinion, he added. “If Sena takes a stand, the BJP takes exactly the opposite of it. This has resulted in a great loss for state. This is not the saffron combine government,” said Raut.
“The current state government is a good example of how the alliance partners in government shouldn’t be. The Sena-BJP relationship is a fit case for divorce, but we are still together forcefully,” he added.