Taking a dig at its senior saffron alliance partner over its eroded stock in Gujarat, the Shiv Sena said on Friday that the verdict in the local body polls, which saw the Congress do exceedingly well in the rural areas, proved that people in the home State of Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not stand fully behind the ruling party.
In an editorial published in its official mouthpiece Saamana, the Sena stated: “The BJP may have come up trumps in six major municipal corporations in Gujarat, but the Congress outscored the ruling party in Zilla Parishad polls. This only goes to prove that Modi’s Gujarat has not stood cent per cent behind the BJP,” the Sena said.
“Though the BJP recaptured power in the municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Jamnagar, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and Bhavnagar, one can not say that the Congress suffered a defeat in the polls. For, it was the Congress that the last laugh in the local body polls. The BJP suffered a huge setback in rural areas of the State where the Congress captured power in 21 of 31 zilla parishads,” the Sena said.