A poster war broke out between the ruling saffron alliance partners on Saturday over the demonetisation, with the miffed Shiv Sena taking a pot shot at its senior ally BJP for its “desperate efforts” to seek the blessings of late Sena chief Bal Thackersay on the Prime Minister’s ongoing campaign against black money.
Seeking to needle further the Shiv Sena which has made no bones about its displeasure over the manner in NDA Government's demonetisation move has inconvenienced the common man, the BJP put up a poster in front of the “Sena Bhavan” at Dadar in north-central Mumbai — which carried a photograph of Modi with folded hands and with blessing hands of late Thackeray over the Prime Minister’s head seen in the backdrop. The poster, put up by Maharashtra BJP unit’s vice president Prasad lad, carried a carried a message that said, Kaalya Paisa Khatam... Heech Acche Din (Elimination of black money: That’s Acche Din).
Through the poster, the BJP apparently wants to needle further the Sena, whose MPs had virtually been snubbed by Modi early this week for opposing his government’s demonetisation move. When a Sena delegation met him on Tuesday over the demonetisation, the Prime Minister had reportedly invoked late Thackeray to take the wind out of the Sena’s sails.
Among other things, Modi had told Sena MPs curtly that as and when he would go to heaven, he would respond directly to late Thackeray and tell him that he had done an excellent job and asked the Sena Parliamentarians as to how do they explain their decision to oppose his demonetisation drive to late Balasaheb considering that it was part of the campaign to flush out black money.
Not to be outdone, the Shiv Sena up a poster within hours of the BJP going town with its teaser against the former. In its poster that carried a huge photograph of late Thackeray, the message read thus: “Panthpradhan Narendra Modiyancha Kevilvaan Akrosh Shavti Shivsena Pramukhanchi Atvan Zalich” (Prime Minister Narendra Modi pathetic lament notwithstanding, he had to remember Sena chief in the end)
As the crucial February 2017 Brinhanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) draw closer, the slugfest between the BJP and Shiv Sena is getting intense. Though the two parties had in the past contested the BMC polls together, it is quite unlikely that they would contest the forthcoming civic elections as an alliance – given the high stakes in the elections and increased ambition of the BJP which wants to rule Asia’s largest civic body on its own. That the BMC is richest civic body in the country can be gauged from the fact that its budgetary outlay for 2016-17 is a staggering Rs 33,514 crore which is larger than the budgets of most of the smaller states in the country.
On its part, the Shiv Sena does not lose an opportunity to have a dig at Prime Minister Modi and his government at the Centre and also the Devendra Fadnavis government in the state.
Of late, the BJP has also started paying back to the Shiv Sena in the same coin. It may be recalled that as senior Mumbai BJP leader and MP Kirit Somaiya had last month announced that his party would go it alone in the February 2017 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, in an effort to end what he called the “mafia raj” in the Shiv Sena-ruled civic body.
A known Shiva Sena baiter, Somaiya had rubbed the Sena leadership the wrong way, by referring to massive corruption in the BMC and charging that “one family” had converted the civic body into a “mafia den”.
Without taking names, Somaiya had trained the guns at the Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and party’s youth wing chief Aditya Thackeray. “The Shiv Sena in general and one family in particular has converted the BMC into a mafia den. The BJP along with a few smaller parties will contest all the 227 seats in the BMC, come out to power on our strength and end mafia raj in the civic body,” Somaiya had said.
Taking a strong exception to Somaiya’s allegation that “one family”—read Thackerays – had converted the BMC into a “mafia den”, Sena’s senior corporator Kishori Pednekar retaliated: “Tell that bogus MP: He is talking too much. We are not the ones to set up dens. But, we do know how to bury people like Somaiya. Our party president Uddhav Thackerayji will make a formal announcement on whether we will go it alone in the polls or not”.