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Maharashtra mandate was for BJP-Sena: Chirag Paswan
In an interview to HT on Monday, Chirag stressed that the efforts to form a government by the coming together of “ideologically different” were “not correct”.
The mandate in Maharashtra was for an alliance government by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena, and not for any other combination, said Chirag Paswan, the president of BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party and the son of Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
In an interview to HT on Monday, Chirag stressed that the efforts to form a government by the coming together of “ideologically different” were “not correct”.
BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis has taken oath as the Maharashtra chief minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s Ajit Pawar as the deputy CM, triggering protests by the Opposition bloc. The NCP says Ajit Pawar took the decision on his own, and clarified that the party has joined hands with the Congress and the Shiv Sena.
The BJP and the Sena were pre-poll allies, and the NCP and the Congress fought the recently held assembly elections together.
“I think it is not correct. Things should have been according to the people’s mandate, which was for an NDA [National Democratic Alliance] government. And when I say NDA government, I mean Shiv Sena too. I don’t mean Bhartiya Janata Party and Ajit Pawar.’’
“I think it is ironic what’s happening in Maharashtra. What is very unfortunate is that the people of Maharashtra gave a clear verdict for both the parties [BJP and Sena]. Now for individual ambitions, they got themselves into a situation like this where all the parties with opposite ideologies are reaching out to each other,’’ he said.
BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said, “It is a fact that voters voted for the alliance of the BJP and the Shiv Sena...In terms of [Sena’s] walking away after the result, it is a betrayal of the mandate where people”
In the results declared on October 24, BJP won 105 seats and the Sena 56. Together the parties have 161 seats, comfortably over the halfway mark of 145 in the 288-member assembly. The two parties fell out over differences on power-sharing.
Paswan has been demanding a coordination committee in the NDA because he says that alliance parties are not consulted on key issues, which has led to dissatisfaction.
“They didn’t brief us on anything. We get as much information as the opposition gets,’’ he said, adding, ``I strongly want to favour the government, want to support them, and we should look united in front of the masses. We are more than willing, but we should be briefed.’’
Ties between the LJP and the BJP suffered a setback over seat-sharing in the Jharkhand elections, with Chirag Paswan’s party finally deciding to go it alone and fight 50 of the 81 seats. “We were open to negotiating and settling for just three-four seats, but they never got back,” he said.
