Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Friday took potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its mouthpiece Saamana a day after its ally was defeated in the Nanded civic poll.
The Sena said that the results sent the message that the saffron party can be defeated. However, the Sena did not analyze its own failure though it accepted the verdict. The Sena had 14 seats, which have been reduced to one.
On Thursday the Congress won 73 of the 81 seats in the Nanded-Waghala Municipal Corporation polls in Nanded, the home turf of state party chief Ashok Chavan, denting the BJP’s bid to wrest power and limiting its tally to six. The Sena managed to open its account with one seat but could not progress further.
“The Shiv Sena had to fight on dual fronts. On the one hand was Ashok Chavan’s Congress, and on the other the BJP, which uses all possible means to win an election,” the editorial said. The BJP had made the election a prestige issue, with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and his Cabinet colleagues taking part in campaigning, but they were decimated, just like in Delhi by the AAP, the Sena said.
“The results must have been a shocker for our friend, which dreamed of a Congress-free India. The message for India through this election is clear — the BJP can be defeated,” the NDA’s ally at the Centre said. The biggest lesson to be learnt from this election is that politics of money, power and poaching does not always work, and that Chavan, whose home turf is Nanded, has managed to cease the winning spree of the BJP, it said.
However, in Nanded’s nine Assembly constituencies Shiv Sena and Congress have four MLAs each and BJP one. Despite that Shiv Sena could not keep its earlier tally 14. “I congratulate Ashok Chavan and we have accepted the verdict by the people. The wave is over; otherwise the BJP would not have imported corporators from the Congress and us. Even the Bhandup byelection was won by sympathy. The Modi wave is finished,” Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray told reporters.
