AIMIM MP from Aurangabad Imtiaz Jaleel had earlier offered to ally with Congress and NCP in order to form broad anti-BJP front in State
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Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Sunday rejected the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM)’s offer to be part of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition to form a broad anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front. The Sena termed the MIM as the B Team of the BJP, alleged that the AIMIM’s offer was part of a BJP ploy to discredit the Sena’s ‘Hindutva’ credentials.
Following a meeting of the Sena leadership and office bearers in Mumbai’s Sena Bhavan on Sunday ahead of the party’s proposed voter outreach drive, Sena MP and chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut said that Maharashtra Chief Minister and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had categorically rejected any alliance with the Hyderabad-based party.
Rejecting the MIM offer, senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut remarked, “Who asked the AIMIM for their free offer? It is part of a ploy on part of the BJP to defame the Sena over its ‘Hindutva credentials’. Chief Minister Thackeray has said that the AIMIM is hand-in-glove with the BJP which has directed the AIMIM to mislead the people and raise question marks on the Sena’s ‘Hindutva’.”
The Sena had bitterly criticized Asaduddin Owaisi’s campaign during the recent Uttar Pradesh election, stating that the AIMIM was nothing but a “behind-the-scenes facilitator” of the BJP’s successful political journey in the country.
In an attempt to counter the oft-repeated charge that the MIM was the BJP’s ‘B-team’, AIMIM’s State president and Aurangabad MP Imtiaz Jaleel offered to join hands with the Congress and the NCP, as well as its own estranged ally – the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) – to keep the BJP at bay in Maharashtra.
Despite the reservations on allying with the Sena, Imtiaz Jaleel nonetheless had said that he would be open for talks with Thackeray himself. The Sena shares power with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the ruling MVA coalition.
Ever since its alliance with the two ideologically opposed parties in a bid to keep its erstwhile ally – the BJP – out of power in Maharashtra after the 2019 Assembly election, the Shiv Sena’s stand on the issue of ‘Hindutva’ and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been vacillating. The BJP has not lost a single chance to criticize Thackeray’s party for having abandoned its ‘Hindutva’ ideals.
Arguing that the Sena is and has always remained a ‘Hindutvawadi’ party, Raut said that Thackeray, during the meeting had observed that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat himself had expressed the view a number of times that those who took an anti- Muslim stance were not Hindus.
Raut further added, “The Sena was always Hindutva and will remain so. We will never go with the AIMIM. This move was part of the BJP’s conspiracy…But the Sena is on the alert and we have exposed this move.”
Speaking on the Sena’s proposed voter outreach drive ‘Shiv Sampark Abhiyan’ which would begin from March 22, the senior Sena leader said that the party leaders and activists would fan out across 19 districts in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha and Marathwada regions to wipe out “the misperceptions and poisonous lies” that were being allegedly spread by the BJP regarding the Sena.
Targeting the BJP, Raut said that it was they (BJP) who had opportunistically formed the government with (People’s Democratic Party) leader Mehbooba Mufti in Kashmir and had insulted the memory of the Kashmiri pandits by doing so.
