The BJP-Shiv Sena combine swept civic body polls across Maharashtra on Friday — winning 117 seats within the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. But even as celebrations broke out across the city, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena ushered its newly elected corporations into the Taj Hotel for an extended stay. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut took a swipe at the Deputy Chief Minister on Sunday — accusing the latter of keeping corporators ‘captive’ in a luxury hotel.
‘Taj hotel turned into jail’
“The corporators who have come from this alliance (BJP-Shiv Sena)… out of fears that someone will kidnap them, threaten them, or harm them, they have been kept captive in the Taj Hotel. Eknath Shinde has turned the Taj Hotel into a Jail. He should immediately release the twenty-nine or twenty-five people he has held captive there,” he said.
Raut claimed that Shinde sequestered the newly elected corporators in the hotel, fearing defections ahead of the decision on the Mumbai mayor. The Sena (UBT) leader said that Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has become an “appendage” of the BJP.
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‘No BJP mayor for Mumbai’
Raut insisted that the yet-to-be-determined mayor would belong to the Shiv Sena — not the “duplicate” Shiv Sena — while criticising the alleged confinement of corporators. He also vowed that the city would get a “Shiv Sena mayor” on the birth centenary of Balasaheb Thackeray. He accused Shinde of “handing Mumbai over to the BJP” and claimed that the “confinement” of corporators was “strangling Marathi pride”.
“Everyone has decided that a BJP mayor should not be allowed. Let’s see what happens next. Among the corporators, there are many new faces. They are Shiv Sainiks, and they do not want a BJP mayor. No matter how much they are kept confined, there are many means of communication today; the message can reach somewhere or the other. If it is God’s will, a Shiv Sena mayor can be elected… I will tell you a historical truth–no matter how large the majority, it is fickle; it keeps shifting…” he added.
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