Shiv Sena First Party In Country To Fight Polls On Hindutva: Sanjay Raut
Mumbai: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Tuesday claimed that the party was the first in the country to contest elections on the Hindutva issue.
Talking to reporters, Raut said that Shiv Sena candidate Ramesh Prabhu had contested the elections on the agenda of Hindutva.
Raut said that for the first time in the country, Hindutva has been mentioned in electoral politics, Congress and BJP were also in the fray in that by-election. Also Read: You Only Gave Speeches, We Faced Bullets’: Devendra Fadnavis Slams Uddhav Thackeray’s ‘Hindutva’ Dig At BJP
Prabhu won the Vile Parle assembly constituency in the by-elections held in 1987–88 and retained the seat in the 1990 elections.
“It is after this victory that the BJP approached Shiv Sena for an alliance on Hindutva which Balasaheb (Thackeray) agreed to as he didn’t want a division of Hindu votes. Contemporary BJP leaders are unaware of this history,” Raut said in a veiled dig at Opposition Leader Devendra Fadnavis.
Raut’s remarks came amid a war of words between the Shiv Sena and the BJP, following which Shiv Sena President and Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday accused his former ally of practising “hollow” Hindutva for power.
Hitting back at the Shiv Sena, Fadnavis on Monday said that Shiv Sena’s Hindutva is only on paper and it is mentioned only in speeches, while his party had to face bullets and sticks during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
Fadnavis claimed that even before the birth of the Shiv Sena (in 1966), there was the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of the BJP, which had councillors in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and MLAs in the state.
When asked about CM Thackeray’s remarks that the Shiv Sena should “capture” Delhi, Raut clarified that he meant defeating the BJP at the national level.
“The country is supreme and Delhi, which is the national capital, should not be dominated by one or two people,” he said.
Raut told reporters that Shiv Sena MLA and Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray will campaign for his party and NCP candidates in Goa, where elections will be held on February 14.
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