Shinde Sena denies tiff with BJP but MPs complain about fund allocation

The Shinde-led Sena has 13 MPs. At a meeting of the MPs with the chief minister on Wednesday evening, the issue of fund allocation was discussed among other things.

Asked if BJP MPs got more development funds, Barne said, "We MPs made no such complaints. It is all a media creation. They want us to quarrel among ourselves." (File)

Listen to this article

Shinde Sena denies tiff with BJP but MPs complain about fund allocation

00:00

1x 1.5x 1.8x

Even as Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday left for New Delhi where he is likely to meet top BJP leaders, the Shiv Sena led by him denied that there was any tiff with the saffron party over the allocation of funds meant for constituencies represented by its MLAs and MPs.

The Shinde-led Sena has 13 MPs. At a meeting of the MPs with the chief minister on Wednesday evening, the issue of fund allocation was discussed among other things. “All our 13 MPs were present at the meeting. We discussed various issues. One of the issues was the allocation of funds. We brought to the notice of the chief minister that we were getting less development funds for our constituencies than what the MLAs are getting from the state government,” Sena MP Shrirang Barne told The Indian Express on Friday.

Barne said annually MPs get a development fund of Rs 5 crore from the central government. “We don’t get funds from the state government but we get development works done by the state government. The amount that is spent on the development works of MLAs is much more than that is spent on works suggested by MPs. We wanted the CM to remove this anomaly. He has promised to look into the issue,” the MP said.

Asked if BJP MPs got more development funds, Barne said, “We MPs made no such complaints. It is all a media creation. They want us to quarrel among ourselves.”

Also Read | Call from Devendra Fadnavis’s office helps woman, who lost her husband, get a job

On whether the MPs discussed the Sena’s share in Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming election, he said, “We discussed several issues, but I cannot comment about all those.”

Sources said Shinde’s Sena has been angling to contest 22 Lok Sabha seats. However, the Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray has ridiculed this claim. “The Eknath Shinde group will not even get five seats to contest. We don’t consider it a party. It is just a group which will soon disappear into oblivion,” Uddhav Sena’s spokesperson Sanjay Raut told The Indian Express.