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Shiv Sena to skip NDA meet today; parting ways with BJP only formality now?
Walking out of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could be just a formality for Shiv Sena now. The party, which is currently
Walking out of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could be just a formality for Shiv Sena now. The party, which is currently holding talks with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress over government formation in Maharashtra, has decided to skip the NDA meeting that will be held on Sunday, a day before the Parliament’s winter session takes off.
The move comes after the NCP and Congress recently demanded that Sena will have to break “all ties” with its pre-poll ally, BJP, and walk out of the NDA government, if it wants to form a government with them.
Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday said the party would not attend the NDA meeting. His statement came after his meeting with Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the latter’s residence.
“I have learnt that the meeting [of NDA constituents] is being held on November 17. We had already decided against attending the meeting considering the developments in Maharashtra,” Raut told the media.
When asked if Sena walking out of the NDA government is now only a “formality”, he said: “You can say that.”
After their failure to work out a power-sharing formula, Sena and BJP are locked in a bitter tussle with the former in talks with Congress and NCP to form a government in Maharashtra. Sena’s lone minister in the NDA government at the Centre, Arvind Sawant, too, resigned from the Union cabinet on November 11.
Sena MP Vinayak Raut told Marathi news channels that he had heard that the seating arrangement of Sena MPs in Rajya Sabha had been changed, and that they have been allotted seats on the Opposition benches.
Meanwhile, Sena, through its party mouthpiece Saamana, continued its tirade against BJP. On Saturday, it slammed the party over a statement made by its state unit president, Chandrakant Patil, that the next government would be formed under the leadership of BJP.
An editorial in Saamana pointed out that BJP itself had told the Governor that it did not have the numbers to form the government.
“If the party is now saying it will form the government, it means they are resorting to horse-trading,” the editorial in Saamana read. “The intention of horse-trading stand exposed now,” it said.
The party, in its editorial, also said that nobody would remain “permanently in power” and that BJP leaders should accept this fact.
