BJP using governors as political agents to destabilise state governments: Shiv Sena

Mumbai: Maharashtra’s ruling party Shiv Sena has accused the BJP of using the governors as its “political agents” to destabilise all the governments run by the Opposition parties. This is not a sign of a good ruler, said senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut.

“In Maharashtra, the BJP has engaged in anti-government propaganda since there is a non-BJP government in the state. In fact, wherever there are Opposition governments, the BJP has trained its guns at them by appointing governors as their political agents,” said Raut in his weekly column in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana on Sunday.

The Sena leader cited several states where governors are at loggerheads with the governments of Opposition parties. “In West Bengal, governor Jagdeep Dhankhar is seen posing daily challenges to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who is not budging to him. In Delhi too, there is a clash between Arvind Kejriwal and the lieutenant-governor. There is no trouble in Punjab due to the fear of invoking the wrath of the Sikh community. In Maharashtra, the Thackeray government is stable despite various attempts from the governor, whereas all efforts to destabilise the Ashok Gehlot government were foiled in Rajasthan,” he added.

Raut predicted that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will also meet the same fate after the Assembly polls. It is the sole reason behind the decision of Chirag Paswan’s party to contest independently, he said.

“The BJP is ready to go to any extent to grab power. For this, it is using the CBI, the income-tax department and the Enforcement Directorate. This is even more terrible than China and Russia,” the Sena leader said.

Meanwhile, Raut has welcomed Union home minister Amit Shah’s remark that Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari could have “chosen his words in a better way” while writing to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on reopening places of worship in the state. He also said that with Shah’s statement, the Shiv Sena has put the issue to rest. Koshyari had recently written to Thackeray on reopening places of worship in the state, and asked if the Shiv Sena president had “suddenly turned secular”, triggering a war of words between the governor and the chief minister.