Burn Mehbooba effigies not Fadnavis’: Shiv Sena to BJP workers

The Shiv Sena on Thursday once again took the opportunity to take a dig at its senior partner BJP after state Cabinet minister Pankaja Munde’s supporters burned an effigy of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Terming the incident as an insult to the entire state, the Shiv Sena said instead, the BJP workers should have been burning effigies of Mehbooba Mufti in Jammu and Kashmir, rather than keeping mum.

Ms Munde was not happy with the chief minister’s decision to divest her of the water conservation portfolio. A post on her Twitter handle stated she would not be able to attend a global summit on water on Monday as she no longer held the portfolio.

Soon after, Mr Fadnavis responded to her on Twitter ‘instructing’ her that she needed to attend it anyway, as she was a senior minister and would be representing Maharashtra.

Though Ms Munde did not comment on the CM’s response, her supporters in Ahmednagar burned Mr Fadnavis’ effigy. Ms Munde has distanced herself from the incident and asked her supporters to maintain decorum.

However, such was the impact of the protests by Ms Munde supporters that Ram Shinde, who has now been given the water conservation portfolio, has still not taken charge of it.

“Mehbooba Mufti government has been a complete failure in Kashmir. However, not a single BJP legislator or minister has expressed displeasure over that. But the story in Maharashtra is completely different. A whisper campaign has started against Maharashtra CM and he is being condemned and his effigies burnt. (BJP) should realise that he is the CM of the state,” an editorial published in Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana said.

The editorial further said that the exchange between the CM and Ms Munde on twitter has made the internal bickering of BJP public. “They should have rather communicated with each other over the phone. Instead, they took to social networking sites, which provided some entertainment to people,” the editorial said.

When contacted, no BJP leader was ready to react to the Saamana article.