Sanjay Raut spoke on the issue in his weekly column ”Rokthok” in the Sena mouthpiece ”Saamana”
Mumbai:
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday slammed the BJP for calling the MVA government in Maharashtra as “unnatural”, and said a government is natural till it exists.
In his weekly column ”Rokthok” in the Sena mouthpiece ”Saamana”, Mr Raut recalled that during alliance talks last year, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had a heated argument over the Assembly Speaker’s post.
“He (Pawar) collected his papers and left the room in anger. I have never seen Pawar so angry,” he said.
Mr Raut said the situation changed after that and the next day at dawn (on November 23) BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis and NCP’s Ajit Pawar took oath in a ceremony at Raj Bhavan.
Their government collapsed within 80 hours.
Last week, former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis termed the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which comprises the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, as an “unnatural alliance”, and said the day this tie-up breaks, his party will give a strong government to the state.
Reacting to it, Mr Raut said, “The BJP has been predicting the government’s downfall and how it will be done depends on the secret activities and the central investigating agencies. Whatever the ED does, I say with responsibility that the MVA government will stay on.”
In politics, “no one is a saint” and no government is natural or unnatural, the Shiv Sena’s chief spokesperson said.
“A government is natural till it is there. To destabilise it, agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are being used. Those doing illegal constructions and accused of abetment to suicide are being protected,” he alleged.
“If these political pressure tactics are natural, then the ”Thackeray sarkar” is also natural. The government has proved its majority on the floor of the House and is within constitutional norms,” Raut said.
He said if there were no COVID-19 outbreak, floods, cyclones and lockdown difficulties, the situation in the state would have been different in the last one year.
After the Maharashtra Assembly polls last year, the Shiv Sena snapped ties with long-term ally BJP over the issue of sharing the chief ministerial post in the state.
Recalling last year’s hectic parleys between the Sena, NCP and Congress to form a non-BJP government in the state, Mr Raut said Sharad Pawar and Mr Kharge had a heated argument over the Assembly Speaker’s post in a meeting at Nehru Centre.
“Kharge and others were firm that the post shouldn’t go to the NCP. I have never seen Pawar so angry. He collected his papers and left the room in anger. Myself and (NCP leader) Praful Patel followed him,” the Rajya Sabha member said.
Sanjay Raut recalled that Mr Pawar had earlier in the meeting said Uddhav Thackeray will be the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance. “But after his argument with Kharge, the situation changed.”
