Mumbai: Shiv Sena leaders have claimed the Jain community has latched on to a statement in Saamana during the meat ban controversy in September 2015, which says ‘There’s Pakistan for Muslims, but where will Jains go?’ The Sainiks claim they in possession of messages sent out by Jain gurus asking their followers to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections while mentioning the Sena mouthpiece’s veiled threat and attributing it to the party, its chief Uddhav Thackeray and Saamana. The leaders claim that they have sent the message to Mr Thackeray and are also mulling what action can be taken against them.
Captain Abhijit Adsul, Vibhag Pramukh of Western Mumbai, and former MLA of the party, claims Mr Thackeray has been apprised about the issue.
One of the videos features an alleged Jain guru saying, “Whenever there was a demand to ban or close butcher shops in the city, the 29 to 30 corporators of the BJP were the only who supported it and remaining opposed to them.”
All this hasn’t gone well with Sena, which was sure that Gujaratis and Jains would support them, as they were reportedly affected because of demonetisation. However, that didn’t happen and the BJP triumphed in Gujarati-dominated areas, especially the western suburbs, Mulund and Ghatkopar.
“How can religious leaders who have renounced everything give such a political discourse? (Sena supremo) Balasaheb Thackeray and our leaders were stopped from participating in elections, so similar action be taken now,” said Mr Adsul.
In 2015, when the issue of meat ban came up, except for the BJP, every other party opposed the ban on slaughterhouses during Paryushan, an important annual holy event. However, the matter escalated and finally the ban was reduced to a few days. Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had escalated the issue to a large extent before Saamana came with the aforementioned statement.
