Mumbai: Despite having low numbers in Parliament and losing power in many states, the Congress is still the only party that enjoys national acceptance and no Opposition unity is possible without it, the Shiv Sena said on Monday.
Commenting on the ongoing unity efforts among major Opposition parties in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Sena said all the Opposition parties were essentially reg-ional forces except the Congress, which remains a “national force”.
“The real problem before the Opposition parties is whether to accept Rahul Gandhi’s leadership or not as there are many aspirants for the post of Prime Minister among Opposition leaders,” the Sena said in edits in its mouthpieces Saamana and Dopahar Ka Saamana.
Dwelling on the current political scenario, it said the secret of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s success was that it enjoyed a majority in Parliament, had huge wealth at its command, could “buy” anything and had the added advantage of disunity in the Opposition.
”In spite of all this, BJP’s failures are evident and there is anger among the people. All allies have abandoned it and now it has dawned on BJP that only the regional parties can help it sail through the 2019 elections,” the Sena said.
Asserting that “there is no alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi within the BJP”, who also suffers from a “trust” deficit, the Sena noted that the party had so far benefited only from the disarray in Opposition ranks.
“In the past four years, people (in India) have gone against the BJP, but it has secured friendship of Putin and Trump... But how will this help in the elections?” the Sena wondered and then went on to add, “In this scenario, if the BJP’s tally falls by over 100 seats, then will it get MPs from Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump or the UAE?”
