Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday stirred up a hornets’ nest in the State political circles, by charging that the BJP had entered into a “secret” deal with Raj Thackeray-led MNS for the 2014 lok Sabha polls, thus back-stabbing its long-time saffron ally, Shiv Sena.
Making a startling allegation hours before the deadline for the electioneering for the first phase of lok Sabha polls – involving 10 seats in Vidarbha — ended, Chavan said: “The BJP no longer wants to continue its alliance with the Shiv Sena. That’s why the BJP has entered into a secret deal with the MNS. Taking advantage of the situation, the MNS has fielded its candidates against the Shiv Sena”.
Chavan went to Sena president Uddhav Thackeray’s defence, when he said that the latter was right when he laid the blame of initiating the “unilateral” process of wooing Raj for a seat-sharing understanding, without taking the Sena into confidence, “However, after Uddhav lodged a protest with Rajnath Singh, the Central BJP leadership sought to pacify the Sena president by reiterating that its alliance with its long-time saffron partner.”
“It seems like the BJP high command had ordered the State unit to go ahead in its secret alliance with MNS. Uddhav was right when he blamed Gadkari for the secret deal,” the Chief Minister said.In an apparent effort to drive a wedge between the BJP and Shiv Sena, Chavan said: “It is strange what is happening between the two long-time saffron alliance partners. The BJP has for some time heaping humiliation on the Shiv Sena. However, the Sena is grinning and bearing the humiliation. It is for the Sena to decide as to how the Sena will suffer humiliation at the hands of the BJP”.
Slamming Narendra Modi for his questionable style of functioning, Chavan said that corporate India looked at the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate as a dictator, under whose regime there would be no scope for any debate or dissent.
“Corporate India has realised that under Modi, there is no scope for debate and dissent. People of India have realised that Modi’s leadership is dictatorial in style,” the CM said.Maintaining that if Modi had his way within his party set-up, then there would not have even been a BJP manifesto. Chavan said: “Modi’s belief is: I am the party and I am the manifesto”. Therefore, there is no need for discussions and deliberations within the BJP. If Modi had his way fully, then would not even been a BJP manifesto”.
Chavan said that while the RSS was holding the reins of the BJP, the Modi-led party was using the television channels and social media for its marketing. “This is because, the BJP has nothing worthwhile to mention its manifesto. The BJP purposely delayed in releasing its manifesto. It was waiting for the Congress to release the manifesto first and what the BJP has done is ‘cut and paste’ goof promises from our manifesto,” he said.
The chief minister charged that the principal Opposition party, which claimed to rule the next government at the Centre in its capacity as the head of the NDA, suffered from “ “ideological confusion”.“Some sections of the BJP wanted to focus on development issues and keep the issues of Uniform Civil Code, Ram temple and Article 370 on the back burner. while another section wanted to highlight them,” Chavan said.