Senior partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sees the Shiv Sena’s rising rhetoric on communally sensitive issues as a “sign of its frustration” and one-upmanship over the shared agenda of Hindutva. The party on Monday rejected Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s call for disenfranchisement of Muslims.
“The Constitution of India has granted voting rights to people above 18 years of age, of all faiths, whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. Someone writing an editorial or making a statement cannot change that reality. The BJP honours the country’s constitution and the government is run by it,” said Shrikant Sharma, national secretary of the party.
Though several leaders of the Sangh Parivar have spoken on the disproportionate political clout that Muslims allegedly enjoyed in the country – in fact, many of them had interpreted the 2014 verdict as the end of ‘the Muslim veto on Indian politics’ – the Sena’s extreme rhetoric makes the BJP uncomfortable. BJP leaders believe that the Sena’s attempt is to put the former on the back-foot by raking up communal issues. BJP wants to keep the Hindutva agenda at a carefully calibrated pace and the Sena is challenging it.
BJP sources told The Hindu that the Sena’s petulance that started after the BJP outsmarted it in the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly election has only worsened in recent months.
