Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Monday mocked the BJP’s claim that it would win 43 out of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in the upcoming general polls. The Sena claimed the situation was grim in the state and wondered how could the BJP think of winning so many seats when the party-ruled state was staring at a slew of problems and the alliance talks with the Uddhav Thackeray-led party were still hanging fire.
On Saturday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and state BJP chief Raosaheb Danve had claimed that their party would win 43 seats, one more than in 2014, in the Lok Sabha polls in the state. Maharashtra accounts for the second highest number of 48 Lok Sabha seats in the country after Uttar Pradesh, which has 80. The Shiv Sena, which is currently a constituent of the NDA at the Centre and the BJP-led government in Maharashtra, had last year announced to go solo in all future elections.
However, the BJP has time and again expressed confidence of stitching up a pre-poll alliance with the Sena. The Sena, in an editorial in party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ on Monday, claimed that several issues were plaguing the state at present. “The BJP-led government tried to crush the agitation of farmers’ daughters in Ahmednagar. There are no good returns for onion growers and milk producers. Teachers are agitating over their demand for filling 24,000 vacant posts in government-run schools, while over 1,000 children have died in state-run shelter homes in last four years,” it claimed.
The government has no solution for these issues, but it was sure of winning 43 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the Marathi publication said. “Politics is given more importance than people’s issues. The way dew sometimes turns into frost because of cold conditions, the minds of rulers have also frozen,” it said. The Sena admitted that the issue of tie-up between the two parties ahead of the Lok Sabha polls was hanging fire. “But, such a situation has not been created by us. The BJP has sown the seeds of such a sin,” the editorial said.
It was referring to the BJP parting ways with the Sena ahead of the 2014 state Assembly elections. The Sena once again raised its demand for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya and lashed out at the BJP over it. “If the BJP has electronic voting machines (EVMs) and over-confidence on its side, it can win all 48 seats in Maharashtra,” the Marathi daily taunted. “The BJP’s lotus can bloom even in London and the US, but it should tell why Ram temple has not been constructed so far,” it said.