Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday claimed that the candidates of the Shiv Sena (UBT) won Lok Sabha elections in the six seats in Mumbai due to the votes of minorities and non-Marathi and non-Hindi speakers.
Fadnavis further said in a speech the Shiv Sena (UBT) allegedly won the Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai on the votes who started using 'janaab' instead of the more popular Hindu Hrudyasamrat for the late Balasaheb Thackeray, news agency PTI reported.
The senior BJP leader further said Uddhav stopped starting his speeches with 'my Hindu brothers and sisters' in the last 6 months to woo the minorities. While Fadnavis launched an all-frontal attack on Thackeray Jr and Shiv Sena (UBT), he also admitted that the fake narrative of the opposition cost the BJP dearly during the Lok Sabha Elections.
Fadnavis said that the fake narratives peddles by the Opposition INDIA bloc during the campaigning for the general polls, especially the BJP wanting 400-plus seats to change the Constitution and end reservations hit the saffron party like a jolt out of the blue.
The BJP contested on 28 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state, of which it won only 9. Devendra Fadnavis also claimed that the BJP got 26 lakh votes in Mumbai as against the MVA candidate gaining 24 lakh votes but the “arithmetic of votes helped them, and we (ruling BJP and Shiv Sena) could win only two seats”.
Furthermore, Fadnavis also expressed confidence in the BJP's potential performance in the upcoming civic polls in Maharashtra.
“The Mumbai Graduates’ constituency elections have been announced and we should win it again as we had given it to our former political ally (Shiv Sena) some years back. Now, it is time to win it back. Our candidate Kiran Shelar will win to prove that the fake narrative against the BJP will not work henceforth,” Fadnavis asserted.
He added that in the Worli assembly seat, Uddhav's son Aaditya Thackeray culd give a lead of merely 6,000 votes to their candidate from the South Mumbai Lok Sabha seat. "It clearly means the Sena's charisma is over, and the BJP will make inroads in the civic polls."