For BJP leaders, mum’s the word!

Mumbai: BJP leader and ex-Finance Minister of Maharashtra Sudhir Mungantiwar told the media that the political party’s core committee meeting held in Mumbai on Monday had decided to wait and watch, adding that his party had no role to play in the ongoing rebellion of Sena MLAs.

While this is far from the truth, Mungantiwar was only following the express orders of BJP’s Maharashtra boss Devendra Fadnavis, who has forbidden his minions from disclosing any alternate facts to points he specified at the meeting.

“At the meeting, Fadnavis said the BJP’s political strategy would be announced in two to three days. He said he was in contact with the party high command about the strategy to be followed until then and directed all those present to desist from making any statements on the issue,” a person close to the development told First India. The former CM told BJP leaders to limit their conversations with the media to five parameters while maintaining total silence on the party’s strategy and making no comment except to say that the BJP has had no role to play in the current imbroglio.

The BJP has also communicated to the Eknath Shinde-led rebel faction to consistently cite the Congress and especially the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as being responsible for inequitable disbursement of development funds, and lament that repeated follow-ups with both the Sena high command and NCP have been in vain. The Shinde faction has further been told to keep emphasizing that they have not received any funding from the BJP, even as they revolted “in order to save the Shiv Sena party’s Astitva (continued existence) in Maharashtra’s politics”.

The BJP will try to emphasize that while their party has tall leaders like Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to mentor, guide and offer advice to rectify their grievances, the Sena lacked the same redressal mechanism. In a strategic move the Sena rebels, who moved the Supreme Court, also submitted the entire video of Sanjay Raut’s reprehensible comments on the record. The Sena MP and spokesperson Raut was forced to offer a reaction stating that he had only made a political statement. The BJP is pinning its hopes on the apex court pulling up Raut and summoning him in the case which would be a major political victory in the ongoing battle for Maharashtra as well as the final nail in Raut’s coffin.