The Bharatiya Janata Party’s dreams of making India “Congress-mukt” (Congress-free) have been reduced to ashes in three crucial states where it was in power, and the party decimated in the other two states, the Shiv Sena said on Wednesday.
Saamna, the mouthpiece of the Shiv Sena which is a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah have been relegated to the sidelines, while Congress president Rahul Gandhi was the shining star in the poll results that came out Tuesday. Out of the five states where elections were held, the Congress won three — Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Telangana and Mizoram were retained by regional parties in the respective states.
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“All these (five) states have given the clear message of a ‘BJP-mukt’ India. The BJP felt it was destined to win all elections and no other party could survive. But this bubble has been burst… You cannot always win by fooling people,” an editorial in Saamna said.
“These states have given a solid drubbing to the BJP. While its invincible bastions like Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have fallen, in Telangana, BJP’s tally is lower than Congress’ and in Mizoram, it was decimated,” it added.
The Shiv Sena and the BJP share an uneasy relationship since 2014-end, and Sena has been criticising the BJP’s policies and central leadership on several occasions. It has also accused the BJP leadership of sidelining its allies. “This is the defeat of the mindset that aimed to not allow any other political party to exist. BJP first sidelined its allies and has now lost important states,” it said.
It also accused PM Modi of not focusing on the domestic issues and raking up “childish” emotional issues to seek votes. “While the economy floundered, farmers suffered, unemployment soared, inflation skyrocketed, and all the time, Modi was flying high busy in global affairs”.
The people of these five states, fearlessly voted the BJP out without going into questions of an alternative’ factor, money and muscle power, the Electronic Voting Machines scam, and dashed the high-flyers into the dirt, the Sena said.
First Published: Dec 12, 2018 13:35 IST
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