IT Correspondent
Mumbai, Jan 18:
With a view to counter Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), the Maharashtra’s ruling party Shiv Sena, has announced that it will contest 100 seats in ensuing assembly polls in West Bengal.
“So, here is the much awaited update. After discussions with Party Chief Shri Uddhav Thackeray, Shivsena has decided to contest the West Bengal Assembly Elections. We are reaching Kolkata soon…!! Jai Hind, Jai Bangla!” Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut tweeted Sunday evening. Incidentally, the two slogans at the end of the tweet are used by Banerjee at every rally.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee often describes the Shiv Sena as her national ally against the BJP.
The Shiv Sena will contest seats in Kolkata, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Jhargram, Purulia, Midnapore, Nadia, Malda, Murshidabad, Alipurduar and some other districts, said Sarkar.
“Our party has decided to contest at least 100 of the 294 seats. Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray, Anil Desai and Sanjay Raut will come to Bengal and campaign. The details of their public meetings are yet to be worked out. Leaders from Bengal have been summoned to Delhi for a meeting on February 1,” Ashoke Sarkar, the Shiv Sena general secretary in Bengal, said adding that “I am camping in Malda right now. From here I will travel to Alipurduar and other north Bengal districts. In the next two weeks, around 12,000 BJP supporters will join the Shiv Sena in Malda district,” said Sarkar.
Though a marginal force in Bengal politics, the Shiv Sena has an organisation in West Bengal and it contested local elections several times in the past but did not see much success. This time around, the party’s main focus will be to contest at least 100 seats in north, south and the western districts where the BJP has made inroads, said Shiv Sena’s Bengal leaders.
It may be recalled that the Shiv Sena, which has largely remained concentrated in Maharashtra, captured a handful of seats in local elections in Uttar Pradesh a few months back.
However BJP West Bengal leaders have said that the Shiv Sena has virtually no presence in Bengal. Its only agenda is to help the TMC against the BJP but the strategy will not work. It is an irony that the CPI(M), which always called the Congress a party of the bourgeois, and the Shiv Sena, which was born to counter the Congress, are all set to present before Bengal’s voters a conflict of ideology.
In the meanwhile the AIMIM has announced that it will contest the Bengal polls from several districts and countered allegations that it helped the BJP win the polls in Bihar by splitting Muslim votes.
