Sena warns of break-up with NDA, BJP says ‘pressure tactic’

NEW DELHI: As the Shiv Sena honoured its six party men who smeared former BJP ideologue Sudheendra Kulkarni’s face with black paint and talked about walking away from the NDA, BJP leaders dismissed the thought as “mere pressure tactics”.

Security tightened: Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri during a visit to Jinnah House in Mumbai. PTI

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 13

As the Shiv Sena honoured its six party men who smeared former BJP ideologue Sudheendra Kulkarni’s face with black paint and talked about walking away from the NDA, BJP leaders dismissed the thought as “mere pressure tactics”.

They claimed that the Sena emerging as a “hardliner” in the NDA worked well for the BJP, which was trying to appear as a more acceptable face among all classes across the country, especially in poll-bound Bihar. “The Shiv Sena is feeling frustrated because they are not gaining anything in the Centre and in the Devendra Fadnavis government they are a junior partner,” a BJP leader said.

Maintaining that the Sena would not rock the Maharashtra boat, at least for now, the BJP called the controversy a part of the Sena’s “game plan” considering the local bodies’ elections in the state. The Sena has decided to strike alone in the forthcoming Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation election.

However, political observers disagree with the BJP’s analysis of the situation. They say the Sena’s footprint is limited to Maharashtra. Therefore, the unfolding drama over blackening of Kulkarni’s face over demand that former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book launch be called off is working well for its stated political position. The BJP’s balancing act — saving its secular face and saving the Maharashtra government — may have landed it in a piquant political situation.

If Sena walks out of the Fadnavis government, it would have not collapse immediately because Fadnavis may find support from Sharad Pawar-led NCP, which is waiting in the wings. But with many corruption cases against the NCP men in Maharashtra, BJP leaders also admit that saving the state government through this route may not be such a good idea.