Shinde slams BJP-Congress alliance against his party as Congress suspends its councillors

Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde lashed out against BJP’s alliance with the Congress on Wednesday to defeat his Sena’s candidate in the municipal election Mumbai suburb of Ambernath Municipal Council and raised questions about how such unlikely political alliances are formed.

“The BJP must explain how such alliances came about. You (the media) should ask the BJP how these alliances get formed. Their leaders may have taken these decisions for power. Senior BJP leaders should take action against this,” Shinde told media persons here.

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Meanwhile, the Congress party officially announced that it has suspended 12 municipal councillors from Ambernath who had formed local level alliances with the Congress in Ambernath.

The Congress suspended its Ambernath ward president Pradeep Patil, informing him in a letter that his ward unit itself has been dissolved. The letter stated that all corporators elected on the Congress symbol have been suspended from the party for forming an alliance with the BJP in the local body, without informing the party’s Maharashtra state leadership.

Maharashtra State Congress Committee President Harshvardhan Sapkal took action against the 12 councilors in Ambernath that they did not provide any information to the party while allying with the BJP.

Shortly thereafter, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told media persons here that, “Such an alliance should not have been formed in the first place. Discussions were underway with Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena in Ambernath, but if local BJP leaders went ahead and formed an alliance with the Congress, this should not have happened. Any alliance with the Congress in any form is wrong. I will be asking questions to my workers,” Fadnavis said.

However, it became known that the BJP also struck a similar alliance with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and other parties in the Akot Municipal Council in Akola district, which led to more criticism and allegations against the BJP, prompting Fadnavis to step in to break up the alliance between BJP and the AIMIM in Akot Municipal Council, but not before the damage had already been done.

Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP and chief party spokesperson Sanjay Raut told media persons, “The BJP has double standards. What happened in Akot and Ambernath shows the frivolous behaviour of the BJP, which can forge an alliance with anyone to grab power”.

Reacting to the development, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray told media persons, “I have heard that the BJP allied with the Congress in Ambernath. Has the BJP abandoned Hindutva in Ambernath, where there is a Shiva temple?”

After a while, Fadnavis stated, “When Waris Pathan of the AIMIM said that a burkha-clad person will become the mayor, not a single word came out of the mouth of the Thackeray brothers, but after Kripashankar Singh said that a North Indian mayor will be elected in Mira Bhayandar, the Thackerays immediately reacted. We want to develop Mumbai”.

“If the Thackerays are from Marathi, then do I come from Uttar Pradesh? BJP is the party which won 15 to 16 seats in Mumbai in the state assembly elections. If we did not have the support of the Marathi people, would we have been able to win these seats? I come from Nagpur. I have not come from Pakistan. Why do Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray have so much hatred for North Indians? All Hindus should live together. We are ready to fight together on the Marathi issue, but we will not tolerate people from other states being beaten up,” Devendra Fadnavis said.

Later, Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant issued a clarification saying, “To oppose alleged corruption of the Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena at the local level, many corporators, including independents, set aside party symbols and affiliations and formed an Ambernath Vikas Aghadi, but there was no formal alliance between Congress and BJP. But the alliance was organised without the permission of the Maharashtra State Congress leadership.”