A month after the BJP’s landslide victory in the Maharashtra polls, Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said that the party’s victory would end the politics of betrayal and treachery started by veteran leader Sharad Pawar in 1978. He claimed that the end had come.
“(The BJP’s) victory in Maharashtra has put an end to the politics of instability and betrayal started by Sharad Pawar in 1978. You (people) have brought such politics underground. We have buried it by six feet,” Shah said while addressing the BJP state convention in Shirdi. .
In 1978, Sharad Pawar, who later founded the Nationalist Congress Party, led 40 MLAs to break away from the Vasant Dada Patil government and become Prime Minister. Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar split the party in 2023 and joined the Eknath Shinde-led government, which also had the BJP as a partner.
The BJP became the single largest party in the 2024 state polls, winning 132 seats, which is also the highest number of seats in the state.
“From 1978 to 2024, Maharashtra was prone to political instability. We provided direction by bringing in a stable and strong Devendra Fadnavis government,” Shah stressed.
#Watch |Maharashtra: Union Home Minister Amit Shah said, “…(the BJP’s) victory in Maharashtra marks an end to the politics of instability and betrayal started by Sharad Pawar in 1978. Uddhav Thackeray betrayed us and he defected from Balasaheb’s ideology in 2019. Today you showed him… pic.twitter.com/BzACZ9bOSJ
— ANI (@ANI) January 12, 2025
Shiv Sena (undivided) and Bharatiya Janata Party contested together in the 2019 assembly polls, but Uddhav Thackeray ended the alliance for the chief minister’s post. The BJP has repeatedly ridiculed him over the move.
“Mr. Uddhav Thackeray betrayed us. He defected from Balasaheb’s ideology in 2019. Today you showed him the position. He became the chief minister by betrayal,” the home minister said.
Shah credited the Bharatiya Janata Party’s big victory in the state to “Hindutva Aur Modi Ji Ki Vikas Ki Rajneeti (Modiji’s development politics)”.
Terming the Bharatiya Janata Party workers as the real architects of the party’s victory in the state, Shah said, “You are the promoters of the party’s victory from the panchayat to the Congress. Let no one try to betray you again. You must make the Bharatiya Janata Party invincible.”
Shah said the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in Maharashtra would have long-term implications, saying the historic victory shattered the confidence of India’s opposition coalition, which has more than 20 political parties.
“Our opponents were waiting for a victory in Maharashtra after the Lok Sabha results. You all have done the job of crushing their dreams,” Shah said.
The Mahayuti alliance of the BJP, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won over 230 of the 288 seats in the state assembly, but the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) ) Congress alliance, Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena faction and Sharad Pawar’s NCP faction won only 46 seats.
