Chandrakant Patil hints at mid-term elections in Maharashtra

February 06, 2020 01:05 am | Updated 01:05 am IST - Shoumojit Banerjee

Asserting that the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government would be unable to complete its full term of five years, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State unit president Chandrakant Patil on Wednesday hinted at the possibility of mid-term polls.

Speaking to reporters here, Mr. Patil, took pot shots at the Chief Minister’s recent interview in Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana in which Mr. Thackeray accused the BJP of ‘betrayal’ that led to the Sena forming a coalition government with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress.

“The people of Maharashtra are aware of who has betrayed whom. Those reposing their hopes in this [MVA] government running its full five-year course will be disappointed…if this is the way Mr. Thackeray is thinking, then the public will give him a fitting answer during the mid-term polls which is sure to follow later this year,” Mr. Patil said, in a riposte to Mr. Thackeray’s Saamana interview.

The BJP leader cast aspersions on the political designs of the Congress, accusing it of “deliberately detaching” the Shiv Sena from its Hindutva ideology in an allegedly planned manner to make way for Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to occupy the vacated ‘Hindutva space’.

The MNS’s change of ideological direction, symbolised by its adoption of a saffron flag, has triggered intense speculation of Raj Thackeray’s party inching closer to the BJP.

However, Mr. Patil downplayed such speculation, stating: “While we are in agreement with the MNS demands that sons of the soil ought to be given jobs, we do not agree to its chauvinist stance on outsiders not being allowed to work in Maharashtra.”

The BJP State unit chief, who has openly welcomed an alliance with the Sena despite the bitter estrangement and the bad blood between the two erstwhile saffron allies, stressed that he was still the Sena’s “well-wisher”.

“It was only because of the Sena that the Marathi manoos and the Hindu community was saved,” remarked Mr. Patil.

At the same time, he said if Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was indeed serious about his party’s Hindutva credentials, his party must come out in support of the BJP over the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), while supporting the Bharat Ratna to be posthumously given to Hindutva leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Mr. Thackeray has said that while there is misconception regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), his government would never permit the implementation of the NRC in Maharashtra.

“If Mr. Thackeray feels that there is indeed widespread misconception about the CAA, then his government ought to stop the anti-CAA protests in the State. Further, he should support the BJP on the NRC and in fighting for the Bharat Ratna to be given to ‘Veer’ Savarkar. It should not keep silent when the Congress insults Savarkar,” said Mr. Patil.

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