On poll eve, Shiv Sena blasts BJP

A day ahead of the Maharashtra elections, the Shiv Sena Tuesday threatened to expose the "fraud" committed by its one-time ally BJP.

"They (BJP) want to know who is our real enemy? The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party are like dead snakes and pose no threat to us," it said in a scathing edit in the party mouthpiece "Saamana".

"It is our one-time friend's 'fraud' we shall expose before the people of Maharashtra. It is our duty," it said, referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In a clear reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders, the Sena said the Gujaratis of Gujarat descended on the state and tried to mislead the Gujarati population in Maharashtra.

However, the loyalty of Gujaratis of Maharashtra was with the ideal of its late patriarch Bal Thackeray and they would not desert the Shiv Sena, it said.

"The BJP made it a mission to defeat the Shiv Sena. The country's prime minister, his cabinet ministers, MPs and others descended with their 'army' here. We installed them at the centre to defeat Pakistan, but now they are bent on uprooting the party (Sena) which adopted a strong stand against (Pakistan)," the edit said, calling the BJP action regretful.

It blasted Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parikkar for giving homilies on Marathi pride. "What about his pre-election promise of making Marathi a state language of Goa? After elections, he threw (the promise) into the dustbin?"

The edit pointed out how former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, the man who committed atrocities on Marathis and insulted the sacrifices of 105 martyrs killed in January 1960 during the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement in that state, was also roped in for the campaign. "Everybody in the BJP is playing their own vote bank politics."

Attacking Vinod Tawde, leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra legislative council and among the BJP chief minister hopefuls, the Sena accused him of coveting power for which he discarded the 25-year-old alliance between the BJP and the Sena.

It objected to Tawde's statement that regional parties stoked flames of "self-respect" as a result of which development suffered.

"Does it mean that all the BJP's celebrations of its alliances with various regional parties in the recent past were a fraud and false display of love (for smaller regional parties)?" the Sena asked.

This was a clear indication that all these years, the BJP was using and looting regional parties for its own vested interests, the edit said.

"On one hand he (Tawde) speaks of constructing a magnificent memorial for Bal Thackeray and on the other they (BJP) want to reduce the importance of Mumbai and want to create Vidarbha out of Maharashtra."

The real memorial and tribute to Bal Thackeray would have been to continue the BJP-Sena alliance and preserve the unity of Maharashtra, the party said.