No option but to come together: Gadkari on BJP-Sena in Mumbai
24 Feb 2017 6:44 PM GMT
A day after the BMC polls threw up a fractured verdict, senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari on Friday said there is "no option" for his party and Shiv Sena than joining hands for control of the Mumbai civic body.
"The situation now is that both parties have no option but to come together again," Gadkari said.
"The final decision on this issue has to be taken by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray. Both are mature and I am sure they will take the right decision," he said.
"I feel leaders of both parties have to take a decision, showing sujh bujh (understanding) and maturity," Gadkari told a Marathi TV channel.
He singled out Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' for its targeting of PM Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
"If there has to be a friendship with us (BJP), then there has to be a check on the writings in Saamana. How will there be friendship when Saamana, on a daily basis, writes insulting things about the PM and our party president?" he said.
"I feel that had these things been avoided, there would not have been so much bitterness between BJP and Sena," Gadkari said.
Shiv Sena should take care that relations between the two parties should not deteriorate because of Saamana, he said.
Gadkari's remarks came a day after the BJP scored an emphatic win in the Maharashtra civic polls, emerging as the largest party in eight of the 10 municipal corporations, while finishing a close second to Shiv Sena in BMC elections.
The BJP improved its 2012 BMC poll performance by leaps and bounds, winning 82 seats, just two less than Sena. Both the parties are short of the magic figure of 114 needed to control the civic body.
The BJP also led the seat tally in elections to 25 zilla parishads and 283 panchayat samitis in Maharashtra, which have traditionally been strongholds of Congress and NCP.
Civic poll outcome strengthens Fadnavis
The BJP's resounding victory in the civic polls in Maharashtra has further strengthened Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who led his party's campaign from the front after deciding to go alone without tying up with the Shiv Sena, according to political observers.
The results, which saw the BJP making massive gains in city corporations and doubling its tally in BMC, also exposed the organisational failures of the Congress-NCP, which were routed even in their strongholds across the state.
Fadnavis, 46, who heads the first BJP-led government in the politically crucial state, single-handedly led the party's campaign criss-crossing the length and breadth of Maharashtra, aggressively projecting "transparency and development" as the central slogan.
Significantly, the BJP's urban sweep came close on the heels of its sterling performance in municipal council elections in November-January, rubbishing the predictions that the party would do badly in the backdrop of the note ban.
In contrast to the well-crafted BJP campaign, the Congress leaders largely confined themselves to their respective districts during the run-up, failing to put up a spirited fight by overcoming organisational weaknesses and internal bickering, poll-watchers said.
The immediate justification of the party for its poor performance, however, was lack of adequate funds.
But some Congress leaders admitted that the party failed to match the high-octane campaign mounted by the saffron parties by bringing to the fore the real civic issues.
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