Sena mouthpiece slams BJP for its poor performance in nagar panchayat, zilla parishad elections

Mumbai: Days after the Bharatiya Janata Party was trounced in the crucial Nagar Panchayat and Zilla Parishad polls, Shiv Sena on Wednesday took potshots at its ruling ally in Maharashtra, saying that the party’s fight for existence in these bodies indicated that people were not benefiting from their governance. “Expecting that people’s sentiments can be bought with power and money is wrong. BJP’s defeat is painful for us as it is an old ally of ours. We never expected that the winds of change would start blowing so soon,” the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamna. It said that BJP ministers were in the habit of making new announcements everyday which have no substance in them. [caption id=“attachment_2739512” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A File photo of a Shiv Sena rally. PTI[/caption] It is surprising that Congress which has no leadership in the state, and the NCP–riddled with corruption charges–could manage to secure decent gains in the recently held polls, the editorial read. “Now there will be clarifications (from BJP) that the results of local polls do not reflect the sentiments of people in the state. But there is no point in playing hide and seek now. Since the party has come to power at the Centre, it is expected that right from Gram Panchayat to Lok Sabha, people are in favour of BJP,” it said. It further said that rising waves eventually settle down and the force of blowing air decreases with time. The dust too settles down eventually, Sena mocked. “If the BJP has to fight for its survival, it should take into account the fact that the fruits of governance are not reaching the people and that loot is happening,” the party stated. BJP won five seats while Congress got 21 seats and the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) bagged 20 seats each in the election to the six nagar panchayats in Maharashtra. This was the second phase of election for 102 seats after the first round of 345 seats in 19 nagar panchayats in January 2016. The state government had formed 138 new nagar panchayats in 2014 by bifurcating urban areas at taluka headquarters.