Union Home Minister Amit Shah with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and others, in Mumbai on Monday.Union Home Minister Amit Shah Monday asked the BJP to punish Uddhav Thackeray for betraying them after the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election as he blew the bugle for upcoming crucial BMC elections.
Sources said Shah, while addressing BJP leaders and elected members during a meeting, also gave his party an ambitious target of winning 134 plus seats of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation out of 227.
A senior minister, who was present at the meeting, said, “Shah has asked party workers to get aggressive and not rest till the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena is defeated in the BMC polls.”
Amit Shah recalled how the Shiv Sena broke the alliance with the BJP over just two seats in the 2014 Assembly election. Referring to the differences between the Shiv Sena and BJP after the 2019 Assembly polls, Shah said, “They betrayed us. This point should be told loudly in public unhesitatingly. If you betray in politics, you cannot pursue honest politics.”
He also urged BJP workers to come out in the field and start working for the elections to the country’s richest civic body.
“Chief Minister Eknath Shinde led Sena is the real Shiv Sena. And it is with the BJP,” Shah was quoted as saying by a source. “Uddhav Thackeray Sena is reduced to a smaller party because of its own conduct,” Shah added.
Shah’s hard stance against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena is a pointer that the BJP is determined to take the battle against that faction as a fight to finish task.
With the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena on its side, the BJP feels empowered to fight its estranged alliance partner which is grappling with in-house problems. Even its ally Congress finds itself on a weak wicket and the NCP is not a force to reckon with in Mumbai.
Shah, who is on a two-day visit to Mumbai, visited Lalbaugcha Raja, a prominent Ganesh pandal, earlier in the day.