Mumbai: Just two days after they decided to join hands, war has broken out between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena over the post of chief minister. Senior Shiv Sena minister Ramdas Kadam said that the BJP had already given a commitment that both parties would share the chief minister's post for an equal duration. If the BJP is backtracking, the Sena should snap ties with it, he said.
Mr Kadam contended that the Sena had agreed to an alliance with the BJP after its party president, Amit Shah, agreed to both parties sharing the chief minister's post for an equal amount of time. He retorted that if the BJP does not want to fulfil the commitment it made, it was free to break the pre-poll alliance right away.
"The Sena agreed to the alliance on two conditions, one was the scrapping of the Nanar oil refinery project and the other was sharing the chief minister's post for half terms each," said Mr Kadam.
Senior BJP leader and revenue minister Chandrakant Patil on Tuesday had said that whichever of the two parties gets the largest number of MLAs elected would stake claim to the chief minister's post.
However, objecting to this, Mr Kadam termed Mr Patil's statement unwarranted even as the BJP president had given the Sena a commitment to that effect. He fell short of accusing the BJP of sabotaging its chances. "We all know what happened in the 2001 polls. Blank ballot papers were cast in the numbers of 5,000 to 30,000 due to which the Sena's chances were affected. We do not want a repeat of it this time. Hence it has now been decided that both parties will share the chief minister's post for two and a half years each," he added.
The day before, the Shiv Sena chose not to comment on its alliance with the BJP in Saamana, its mouthpiece, but instead warned the NDA government not to use the Pulwama terror attacks for political gains. As the Shiv Sena and the BJP sealed a seat-sharing pact on Monday, it was expected that the Sena would justify its decision in the editorial in Saamana.
