Shiv Sena despite being an ally of BJP in Maharashtra, recently is not leaving any occasion unattended to criticise the ruling party both at the state and at the centre. It has more than once also indicated that it does want to be involved and blamed for the bad policies of BJP and has more than once indicated that it pulls out its alliance with the party.
An editorial in the mouthpiece of Shiv Sena, ‘Saamana’, read that “The BJP government’s stand is that the prime minister, the president and the chief ministers should not be insulted and that people should be patient.”
The Shiv Sena on Monday accused the ruling BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi to be intolerant towards criticism on the social media. The party said that instead of telling the people not to criticise and be patient, BJP should listen to the criticism and accept correct itself where it has erred.
It also read that it is the platform that greatly helped the saffron party win elections and now the same party after being victorious is being intolerant towards social media. Now it is asking the people not to criticise and insult the Prime Minister, the President and the Chief Ministers and that the people should be more patient.
In the editorial, it was also questioned that “However, where did this call for patience and good manners disappear when Manmohan Singh was time and again made fun of when he was the prime minister?” It read that now that the false promises made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are being revealed by the youth and the real face is being unveiled of the party, it seems like “it is getting bogged down in a pit it dug for somebody else”.
Hitting the ruling BJP the editorial in Sena’s mouthpiece said that the BJP who used the social media to pull down the opposition is now itself suffering the aftereffects as now the opposition has begun to unmask BJP. It also said that the Prime Minister should declare if there is no freedom to air one’s views about the government or the BJP, as the youth are now getting angry at the government for failing on its promises.
These comments of the Sena comes in the wake of the social media campaign of Congress that was lying dormant for a long time has suddenly become active in the past few months. Congress under the leadership of party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi is continuously attacking the BJP over its failure in creating jobs, wrong implementation of GST and failure in the experiment of demonetisation.
The campaign is especially getting viral on the social media in Gujarat with the slogan ‘Vikas gando thayo che’ (development has gone crazy). Gujarat will be facing the assembly polls in Dec this year and Congress ahead of the polls is on its toes to pull down the ruling BJP this time and put an end to their political exile of 22 years. This slogan gained a lot of pace on the social media, and for which also received some opposition from BJP, but none the less, the huge response to Congress is clear;y indicating that Congress Mukt Bharat is still a faraway dream for BJP.