Mumbai: With Home Minister Amit Shah asserting that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will once gain be the JD(U)-BJP alliance’s CM candidate, the Shiv Sena has questioned its former ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for following a different alliance formula in Bihar than it did in Maharashtra.
The Shiv Sena and BJP had fallen out last year over the chief minister’s post and sharing of portfolios, following which Shiv Sena formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on 28 November.
In an editorial in the party’s mouthpiece publication, Saamana, Tuesday, the Sena has now lashed out at the BJP for declaring that Nitish will remain the CM candidate even if the BJP wins more seats than the Janata Dal (United) in the upcoming assembly elections.
The Shiv Sena drew parallels on the BJP’s actions in Bihar and Maharashtra. “The BJP did not use this formula from Bihar in Maharashtra or anywhere else. Nitish Kumar walked in and out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Still he is declared as a faithful and old ally,” the editorial stated.
The editorial comes about a month before the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra completes a year in power.
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Editorial questions BJP’s stance on Nitish
Quoting Amit Shah, the Shiv Sena said the BJP considers Nitish Kumar to be an old and trustworthy ally, but questioned the assessment.
“In the last assembly election, Nitish Kumar was not an ally of the BJP. His JD(U) allied with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) and the BJP was his main enemy. The BJP also launched a series of attacks on Nitish Kumar,” the Shiv Sena said, adding the only similarity between then and now is that back then, even the RJD had declared that Nitish Kumar will be the alliance’s CM candidate even if the JD(U) does not get the majority seats.
The party added that Nitish Kumar’s skill to still be counted as an “old ally” is praiseworthy. “How does he manage to do it? It’s a mystery,” the Shiv Sena added in the Saamana editorial.
The party also questioned if CM Nitish Kumar should really be considered as the “face of Bihar” highlighting how the state has failed to create job opportunities for locals who have to migrate to other states for work. It even cited Bihar urban development minister’s faux pas of sharing a photo of a Hyderabad flyover while passing it off as the state’s infrastructure.
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The BJP-Shiv Sena fallout
A year ago, the Shiv Sena and the BJP splintered their alliance after the Maharashtra assembly election results last October over the chief minister’s post.
The BJP had emerged as the single-largest party with 105 seats, falling short of the half-way mark in the 288-member assembly, while the Shiv Sena was the second-largest party with 56 seats. The Shiv Sena had been playing second fiddle to the BJP since 2014, when the national party scored the highest number of seats and installed its CM, Devendra Fadnavis. Since then, the Shiv Sena had been wary of the BJP’s growth in Maharashtra, which is its home turf.
Following the results, the Sena, which had always touted itself as BJP’s oldest and most faithful ally, accused the party of going back on its words and belittling the Shiv Sena to accommodate its aggressive ambitions.
While Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray, now Maharashtra CM, insisted that the BJP and Shiv Sena had decided to equally share all posts and portfolios, including the CM’s chair, BJP’s Fadnavis publicly denied there was such an agreement.
After a month-long uncertainty and President’s rule, the Shiv Sena ultimately joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government on 28 November 2019.
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