The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena have hit out at Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan over his claims that the two saffron partners were on the verge of a spilt in 2014.
In an interview to a news agency the former Chief Minister recently said that the Shiv Sena had proposed a coalition, like the present Maha Vikas Aghadi, with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) after the 2014 Assembly elections with the sole intention of stopping the BJP from coming to power. The proposal was, however, rejected by the Congress party high command, he said.
Reacting to Mr. Chavan’s statement, former chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis said thanks to Mr. Chavan the true face of the Sena lies exposed. The revelation made by a senior leader like Mr. Chavan must be taken seriously. “That the Sena was prepared to form a three-party coalition after the polls in 2014, is a shocking revelation. This has exposed Sena’s true face and shows that for them ideology and value system are not beyond the lust for power. They should now give voters an answer,” said Mr. Fadnavis, who is also the Leader of Opposition now.
Mr. Chavan also claimed that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was not ready for a tie up with Shiv Sena even in 2019, but relented only after long deliberations with senior party leaders. Asked if the coalition government would last a full term, Mr. Chavan said there was no 100% guarantee for a three-party government to last full term. However, in this case the three have come together to keep the BJP away since it tried killing the Opposition and betraying the Sena.
Reacting to the claims made by Mr. Chavan, Shiv Sena leader and Minister for Transport and Parliamentary Affairs Anil Parab said he was not aware of any offer made by the Sena to Congress and the NCP.
“Mr. Chavan should come clean on which Sena leader provided him with the information about such an offer in 2014. I do not know of any such proposal,” he said.
Senior NCP leader and Cabinet minister Nawab Malik too denied having any knowledge of the Sena overtures five years back. “If they had separately contacted the Congress then it is a different story. But the NCP never received any offer from the Sena back then,” he said.
