Urging the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena not to hold voters of Maharashtra hostage, a coalition of fringe right-wing outfits on Wednesday appealed to the estranged saffron allies to bury their differences and quickly form a government based on the Hindutva ideology. The outfits also threatened that failure to do so would invite their ire in future.
The Hindu Mahasabha, the Milind Ekbote-led Samasta Hindu Aghadi and Sambhaji Bhide’s Shiv Pratisthan Hindusthan, among others, warned that they would take to the streets if the Sena attempted to establish a government with the support of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
“The public of Maharashtra is upset that the BJP and Sena are squabbling over the chief minister’s post. Despite having a clear mandate, these two Hindutva parties are not forming a government,” said Mr. Ekbote, who is an accused in the Bhima-Koregaon clashes of last year and is currently out on bail.
He said it would be “deplorable” if the two saffron parties jettisoned their common ideology, and the Sena sought the support of the NCP and the Congress instead.
Sameer Kulkarni, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast in Nashik and a member of Abhinav Bharat, said Hindutva outfits would make sure that not a single MLA was elected from both the BJP and the Sena in the next Assembly election if the former allies continued with their petty bickering.
“What the BJP and the Sena have done by their petty fight over the CM’s post amounts to nothing less than a betrayal of the public’s trust. They should not thus play with the emotions of the people of Maharashtra by delaying the government formation process,” he said, remarking that the Sena was courting trouble with its talks with the NCP and the Congress.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader and former State cooperation minister Subhash Deshmukh has said a government formed by a coalition of the Sena and the Congress-NCP alliance would not endure. “It is an unnatural alliance and one that will not last long. No government in Maharashtra can be formed without the BJP,” Mr. Deshmukh said in Solapur.
He stressed that despite the Sena’s parleys with the NCP and the Congress, it was still not late to hold talks with the BJP and the doors were still open.
“The people in the State are indeed upset at the ‘Mahayuti’s’ failure to form a government … the Sena must give up this obstinate attitude and be ready to hold talks with us. We are willing to form the government with them,” Mr. Deshmukh said.
