After its two and half decade-old ally broke off ties with it, the Shiv Sena launched a broadside at the BJP, accusing it of trying to weaken Maharashtra by severing it into pieces and shifting economic activity to other states like Gujarat.
"The leaders of the BJP are seeing horrible dreams of breaking Maharashtra into pieces. They want to carve out (a separate state of) Vidarbha. This dream of the seth-sahukars of Vidarbha could not be fulfilled so far because of the Shiv Sena. This gives rise to a question. Did the BJP break its alliance with Sena to break Maharashtra and fulfil the dreams of the seth-sahukars? ...they want to create a separate Vidarbha and weaken Maharashtra," charged Sena's Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson Sanjay Raut in his weekly column in the party organ 'Saamna' on Sunday.
Raut, the executive editor of the newspaper, said that "while efforts were underway to reduce the importance of Mumbai, not a single BJP leader is willing to comment on it." He alleged that the people felt that like Vidarbha, the seth-sahukars also wanted to break Mumbai from Maharashtra.
The column referred to Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel's recent visit to Mumbai where she wooed investors to come to Gujarat. "BJP leaders don't seem to have objected to industries in Maharashtra heading for Gujarat. This is not a question of Gujarat but that of stopping the growth, development of Maharashtra," said Raut, adding that the Shiv Sena had "protected" the Gujarati community during the 1992 riots. Hence, he said, the Gujarati community in Mumbai may not have agreed with Patel.
The column referred to how the working of Air India had been shifted to New Delhi from Mumbai, the moving out of RBI offices from Mumbai, the shift of economic activity from Mumbai and JNPT ports to Gujarat, grant of land around Mumbai to industrialists from outside the state who are close to BJP leaders and industries from Maharashtra moving to other states. "These incidents must serve as eye-openers," Raut added.
The column claimed that Maharashtra was saddened over the Sena-BJP split and said history would make a note that this happened after Amit Shah from Gujarat was made the national president of the BJP.
"Maharashtra is wondering why Narendra Modi did not intervene when the alliance was breaking," said Raut, adding that "people (from BJP) had come here from Delhi to break the tie-up."
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