Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Friday (June 16) said that his party’s doors were shut for Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray for all times to come. Speaking to reporters at the Nagpur airport the Maharashtra BJP chief hinted that there was no possibility of reconciliation with him.
“All doors of the BJP are closed for Uddhav Thackeray. We are neither discussing anything with him nor will we do so in future,” Bawankule said in response to a query.
The BJP and undivided Shiv Sena parted ways after fighting the 2019 Maharashtra assembly elections together when post-poll results sharp differences over sharing the chief minister’s post appeared. The Thackeray-led Sena then teamed up with the NCP and the Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state.
However, the coalition MVA government collapsed in June last year after Eknath Shinde and 39 other MLAs of the Sena rebelled against Thackeray and joined hands with the BJP to form government. After a lot of high-voltage drama full of speculations, allegations and counter-allegations, Shinde became the chief minister and senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was appointed as his deputy.
Also Read: Why KCR finds Maharashtra fertile ground to expand BRS
Bawankule was asked about Telangana Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s allegation made in Nagpur on Thursday (June 15) that Maharashtra witnesses most suicides by farmers. Replying to the query, Bawankule said that the BJP will soon release a video about the flaws in the Telangana model and what KCR was saying and doing.
On former MLA Ashish Deshmukh, who is set to join the BJP on June 18, Bawankule said, “Deshmukh told the BJP that he is not keen on fighting the upcoming polls to the Maharashtra Assembly or the Lok Sabha and he wants to do the work of expanding the party base. He does not want to remain in the Congress as that party is anti-OBC.”
Deshmukh, who was the BJP MLA from Katol in Nagpur district, had quit the saffron party and joined the Congress some years ago. Recently, he was suspended from the Congress.
(With agency inputs)