Shiv Sena decides to end ties with BJP

Mumbai : The Shiv Sena on Tuesday announced that it would contest the 2019 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections on its own, and elevated Uddhav Thackeray’s son Aaditya, 27, in its hierarchy to make him a part of the core team. Senior Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut made the announcement.
The Shiv Sena national executive, which met at the NSCI in Worli on the birth anniversary of their late founder Bal Thackeray, passed the resolution on contesting solo in the 2019 polls. The decision comes amid increasingly strained relations with its ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). For a while now, the Sena chief has been taking on the BJP and even Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, with whom he is said to share a good personal rapport, on several issues.
“We will fight elections in every state for the cause of Hindutva, I take this vow today,” said Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray. He also questioned the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as to why he didn’t take his Israeli counterpart to Lal Chowk Srinagar for road show instead of Ahmedabad Gujarat. Thackeray said Modi calls himself ‘Pant Pradhan’, but all he does is travel abroad, he took Israeli PM to Ahmedabad, why not to Lal Chowk in Srinagar?
“Why couldn’t he have done a road show in Srinagar? Had he hoisted tri-colour in Lal chowk, we would have felt sense of pride towards our PM,” a news agency quoted Thackeray as saying. (Agencies)