Angry Shiv Sena hits out at BJP for expulsion

Mumbai: After claiming that its exit from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would be a mere formality, the Shiv Sena seems to be agitated with Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision to discard it from the Centre-right alliance.

The Sena on Tuesday asked the Amit Shah-led party to explain the basis on which it decided to push the party out of the NDA.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut had announced on Saturday that there was just a formality left in his party leaving the NDA.

The next day, BJP also announced that Shiv Sena was no more part of the NDA.

However, two days later, the Sena does not have a confirmation of Congress and NCP’s support to form the government. As a result, there is a palpable uneasiness in the Sena, which is now furious with the BJP leadership’s decision.

In a Saamana editorial, the party taunted the BJP for showing immense hurry in throwing out the Sena from the alliance and said that it may invite an unnecessary accident.

The remark in the editorial was apparently in reference to Union parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi announcing a change in the seating arrangements for Sena MPs, who were allotted seats in the Opposition benches. “The leader who made this announcement did not know pain of the Shiv Sena and karma and dharma of NDA,” the editorial read.

The editorial also portrayed Sena as the original guardian of the Hindutva movement as well as the NDA, adding that it used to back the BJP when everybody shunned it. “The Sena has experienced the labour pain while the NDA was born. Nobody wanted to stand with the BJP. Hindutva and Rashtravad (nationalism) was not flavoured by anyone. But the Sena used to put oil in the lamp of Jansangh, the erstwhile BJP,” the editorial read.

Aghast at Sena’s unceremonious exit, the editorial tried to remind BJP leaders about the alliance’s history. “Veteran leaders such as Balasaheb, Vajpayee, Advani, George and Badal laid the foundation of the NDA. The current leadership was either in its infancy or was not even born back then,” the editorial noted with sarcasm. Interestingly, none of the  Sena leaders were instrumental in NDA’s formation.