New Delhi: If the Bharatiya Janata Party had listened to him in 2019, there would have been no Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said Friday.
Thackeray was harking back to the Shiv Sena’s demand after the 2019 polls that their then-ally BJP share the chief minister’s post with them – two and a half years for each.
The BJP and the Shiv Sena were poised to form the government at that time.
But when the BJP refused, Thackeray broke their three-decade alliance and formed the MVA with the ideologically-mismatched Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray became the chief minister of the coalition.
But on Wednesday, he was forced to resign after a revolt by Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde toppled the MVA government.
On Thursday, the BJP came forward to prop up the rebels to form the next government, with Eknath Shinde as the new chief minister. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis — a former chief minister — will be his deputy in the new dispensation.
“What happened yesterday,” Uddhav Thackeray asked of the BJP’s “generosity” in making Shinde the new chief minister of Maharashtra.
Thackeray said: “I had told Amit Shah earlier as well that there should be a Shiv Sena chief minister for 2.5 years.”
“Had they done this, there would have been no Maha Vikas Aghadi,” he added.
“This could have been done respectfully. The Shiv Sena was officially with you (at that time),” he said, adding, “This CM (Eknath Shinde) is not a Shiv Sena.”
Thackeray also asked the new government not to build a proposed Metro rail shed in Mumbai’s Aarey Colony, a green patch also known as the city’s lungs. The Thackeray government was opposed to the location, following protests by environmentalists.
“Don’t project your anger for me on Mumbaikars. Don’t toy with the environment of Mumbai,” Thackeray said.
Also read: Power, party, dignity, father’s legacy — what all Uddhav Thackeray is losing in Maharashtra