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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Uddhav tears into BJP’s claim

Mumbai:  Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday launched a blistering, wide-ranging attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments at the Centre and in the state, targeting what he termed as a ‘toxic political climate’, rising crimes against women, and a ‘hire-and-fire’ culture hurting workers. Addressing the 58th annual general meeting of the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, Thackeray delivered a strong political cocktail laced with jibes, concerns over labour rights, women’s...

Uddhav tears into BJP’s claim

Mumbai:  Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday launched a blistering, wide-ranging attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments at the Centre and in the state, targeting what he termed as a ‘toxic political climate’, rising crimes against women, and a ‘hire-and-fire’ culture hurting workers. Addressing the 58th annual general meeting of the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, Thackeray delivered a strong political cocktail laced with jibes, concerns over labour rights, women’s issues, unemployment, and governance priorities. Attacking Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his recent remarks about ‘tearing the burqas’ of the Opposition, Thackeray questioned sarcastically: “We are Hindus… So what ‘burqas’ are you going to rip off? Were you even present in the Lok Sabha?” Referring to atrocities on women, Thackeray sharply questioned the government’s priorities saying while the CM is campaigning in other states, women are being molested right here, fake babas are multiplying and drug rackets are flourishing in the state. On BJP’s claims of commitment to women’s reservation, the SS (UBT) chief asked “why the President (Droupadi Murmu) was not invited to key national events such as the inauguration of the new Parliament building or the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya”. “This is not a new issue. We are ready… Implement women’s reservation today,” Thackeray asserted. Veering to national politics, Thackeray said that the BJP today lacks personalities of (the late) Arun Jaitley’s stature, and described West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee as “a fighting tigress who is bound to win”. He claimed that ‘two lakh CRPF personnel’ were deployed in West Bengal while barely 20,000 were stationed in the violence-hit Manipur. “Security forces were once used by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel for integrating states into the Union, but now they are being used to win elections,” Thackeray said. On the alleged misuse of central security agencies, Thackeray dared the BJP to ‘set aside the CBI and ED’ and face the elections in a fair fight. “You deploy security forces to ensure your party wins as you lack the capability to win on your own merits, or unleash the ED-CBI. It is better to live like a tiger for one day than as a goat for 100 days,” said Thackeray. Alluding to the debates triggered by RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s views on population, he asked: “Encouraging more children is fine - but who will feed them? What about unemployment problems?” Thackeray expressed concerns over delimitation based on population, warning it could skew political representation. “Some states are implementing family planning programmes quite effectively… Is practicing family planning now considered a crime?” Turning to the distress faced by the working classes, he flayed the current employment model as a ‘constant cycle of hire-and-fire’, with the government ignoring the security of workers. “Why are workers being compelled to leave the state, or even the country, for employment. They are the architects of the nation’s destiny. Now reports emerge that workers from north India are being employed in Dubai. The country is calling them to ‘return’. They ignored the calls, preferring to die by a bomb rather than returning to India only to die of unemployment,” said Thackeray, in a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He compared the current bout of global tensions, including the ongoing Iran-United States war, as a repetitive spectacle, triggering multi-fold domestic economic anxieties.

Clever seat selection helped BJP to secure historic win

The party won 65 seats against Congress, 37 against NCP (SP) and 29 against Shiv Sena (UBT)

Clever seat selection

Mumbai: The BJP’s strategic seat sharing with the allies has proved beneficial for the party. An analysis of the Assembly election results show that the BJP has scored over its main rival, the Congress, in a big way because of the direct fights.


The analysis shows that BJP defeated all three constituents of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) – in the direct fights. This is attributed as one of the reasons for the BJP’s historic poll success.


The BJP contested 147 out of 288 seats. In 76 constituencies, it faced Congress. BJP secured victory in 65 seats and lost only 11 seats, making it a whopping 86 per cent of the total direct fights. This was followed by an even stronger performance against NCP (SP). Of the total 39 fights with Sharad Pawar’s party, BJP captured 37 seats making it 95 per cent of the total fights with NCP (SP). BJP and Shiv Sena (UBT) were head-to-head in 32 constituencies, of which BJP emerged victorious in 29 seats, making this 91 per cent of the total direct contests.


According to a BJP strategist the party had bargained hard with its allies, Shiv Sena and NCP to get the desired constituencies in the seat sharing formula. “We had studied to potential candidates of the MVA. That helped us in choosing the seats where we can register comfortable victories,” the strategist said.


BJP spokesperson Niranjan Shetty attributed the success to all the party workers who worked hard to boost development, infrastructure in the state. He gave credit to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his contribution to the party’s success.


Shetty pointed out that in 2019, Uddhav Thackeray had stalled all the “novel” and “legendary” projects that Fadnavis had started when he had taken over as CM, making it very easy for the people of Maharashtra to strike a comparison between both the leaders and the potential they had for serving the people. “Devendra Fadnavis gave up his post very easily for the larger good. There are many such examples like Venkaiah Naidu who was BJP National President and later worked as the Vice President of India because that was the need of the hour. We seldom care about our posts,” Shetty told The Perfect Voice.


Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe refused to call the election results as the people’s mandate. “This is not at all a Janata mandate. Despite Maharashtra struggling with so many basic social issues, how can BJP acquire such a huge mandate is the question. If a student copies and fails with just passing marks, it can go unnoticed, but if a student copies and bags the number one position, something is fishy. Why is the BJP scared of ballot papers?” he said.

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