'Alliance Not Possible In Few Places Due To Local Calculations': Eknath Shinde Assures Mahayuti Unity Ahead Of Civic Polls

Mumbai: Ahead of the elections to the Maharashtra civic body polls on January 15, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, in an exclusive conversation with Republic TV, downplayed the local alliances where the Shiv Sena and the BJP are not contesting together, saying that it is only a local body election fought by party workers and their agenda has always been on “development.”

“This is a local body election of the party workers. In the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha, we fought together. We fought together in several places during the Nagar Parishad elections and in some areas there were friendly elections. Even in corporation elections, BJP and Shiv Sena are contesting together in 13-14 places," Shinde said.

The Deputy Chief Minister also reasoned that the elections were stayed by the court over a long period and so all the workers had to contest.

"These elections had been stayed by the court for a long time. Now since the elections are happening again, all the workers have to contest. So due to local calculations, in some places, we could not form an alliance," Shinde said.

Shinde said that while the BJP-Shiv Sena fought the elections together in some places, in others it was not possible.

“In the Nagar Parishad, we fought elections together in some places and at some places we did not. We had decided that we wont pass comments against each other at the lower level. We will talk about development and fight the polls on the issue of development. This was our agenda,” the Deputy CM said, adding that, "In that election, Ajit Pawar was with the BJP in some places and in coalition in other places.”

Shinde underlined that these local fights wont impact the unity of the alliance in any way. The BJP, Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is in power in the Maharashtra government.

BJP Alliance With Congress

Shinde said that he was disturbed by the alliance formed by local party workers with the Congress, mentioning that such a tactical arrangement is against their party's ideology.

“I spoke to the Chief Minister and BJP state president Ravindra Chavan regarding the alliance with Congress and clearly told him that such an alliance is against our ideology. We could have formed an alliance together. We have around 28 elected corporators there. The Chief Minister have taken it seriously. He said that it should not have happened. I flagged it that it is against our ideology. He assured that he will look into to. I don't know what happened after that. I heard that some of them have joined the BJP. But this is a local election. Our goal is clear. We will never compromise on Balasaheb Thackeray's principles. Not for seats and power,” the Deputy CM said.

Shinde seemed to dodge the question on his alliance partner Ajit Pawar's controversial statement on the Rs 70,000 crore scam, saying, "Only he knows why he made that statement."

BJP-Shiv Sena Ideologically Tied

Highlighting the strong and natural ties between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, Shinde pointed out that the history of their partnership goes back to the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani.

Hitting out at Uddhav Thackeray, his former party colleague, before he split the party a few years back and joined hands with the BJP, Shinde said, “The Shiv Sena and BJP coalition is not new. It goes back to the days of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani. When there were efforts to go against and leave out Balasaheb Thackeray's ideologies, we carved out our own path. We are moving forward on his ideology.”

Making Mumbai Pot-Hole Free

Addressing the allegations of corruption in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Shinde said that he will work towards removing potholes from the streets of Mumbai and assured that the city will be “pot-hole-free” in a year. Slamming the Maha Vikas Aghadi, he reasoned that they should have ensured the completion of the road concretisation work when they were in power. 

“Shiv Sena and BJP are together in the BMC. I am confident that in the 2.5 years of my tenure, and the last one year of Devendra Fadnavis' tenure as Chief Minister, people have seen our work in the last 3.5 years. Before that, in every monsoon, people had to face potholes. There were many accidents, may deaths. This should have been the duty of those in power. When I became the Chief Minister I prioritised this and carried out road concretisation throughout Mumbai. BMC has money. That is better than spending every year on repairs and there are corruptions in it as well. This is people's money. We are concretising several roads. By May many roads will be concretised. In the next one year, Mumbai will be pothole free. This should have been done earlier," he said.

"There was no sewage treatment plant before. Hence polluted water was flowing into the sea,” the Deputy Chief Minister added, claiming that the earlier Maha Vikas Aghadi government had been putting a stay on various developmental work in the city, including Metro projects.

“All pending cases of corruption, including the Mithi River Project, will be investigated,” he assured.

Eknath Shinde also revealed his goal to bring back Mumbaikars to the city, he said, “Mumbaikers have moved outside because their slums were taken away by the developers but they didn’t get anything in return after 20-25 years. That is why they left Mumbai. Who is responsible? Mahayuti will bring Mumbaikers back to their city. Wherever slums, redevelopment projects are stalled because of development will be started through JV using cluster-model.”

Marathi Manoos Must Be Respected

Speaking on the oft-debated and sensitive Maratha reservation issue which has been a thorn for the ruling coalition, Shinde said, “They bring out this issue every election. They play with people's emotions in every election. But people understand this. They will vote for development.”

On attacks against non-Marathi speaking people in the state, some of them by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), he said, “Assault on non-Marathis is not Maharashtra's culture. Marathi Manus should be respected in Maharashtra, their rights should be reserved. This is why Balasaheb Thackeray started the Shiv Sena. Marathi Manus should get employed, get business, be respected. Earlier when people were afraid to proclaim that they were Hindus, then Balasaheb Thackeray coined this slogan.” 

"Everyone from various castes live in Mumbai for ages, some of them speak Marathi well. But it is not fair to beat up someone for not speaking in Marathi. They have been staying here for so many years that they have inculcated Maharashtra's culture. In Maharashtra, people should respect Marathas and there should not be highhandedness of Hindi," he added.

Thackeray's ‘False Affection’ 

Shinde hit out at the Thackeray cousins for coming together ahead of the Mumbai civic body polls, labelling their unity as “false affection” and people are not interested in such opportunistic political alliances.

“I do not pay attention to what others say. I only focus on work. It does not matter who is allying with whom. People want development and are not interested in political alliances. This is false affection, they are scared,” he said.

As Maharashtra readies itself for the January 15 local body elections, political observants are curious to find out how the different alliance formulations will turn out at the local levels, as these results will indicate how much foothold, each of the alliance partners command at the grassroots.

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