Nagpur: At Shiv Sena campaigns, it’s Modi all the way

NAGPUR: At a Shiv Sena rally in Buldhana on Tuesday, there were flags of both saffron partners — BJP and Sena — and masks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi were being distributed.


Even Modi’s songs of ‘Mein bhi chowkidar hoon’ resonated throughout the rally. Sena workers too joined the chorus with their BJP counterparts in the rally and were banking on the leader’s charisma.

Similar scenes were witnessed at all

rallies

in Amravati and Ramtek where Sena’s candidates are contesting the polls. Sena supremo, however, was hardly visible in all these rallies and focus remained on only one man — Modi. Apart from BJP, even Sena workers were seen vouching for Modi as the next

PM

.

Following acrimonious relationship between the saffron parties, it was hard to believe, till declaration of elections, that workers of both the parties would be joining hands in the campaign as leaders of both the parties were critical of each other.

Sena in particular, had flayed Modi’s policies in the past. On December 24, Uddhav Thackeray in his speech at Solapur had censured Modi while indirectly repeating the Congress’s jibe on chowkidar in the Rafale deal. On January 7, Sena mouthpiece Saamna had flayed the PM over his “hollow claims” of job creation accusing him of being responsible of over 11 million people losing their jobs last year.

Buldhana MP Prataprao Jadhav defended the party’s decision stating that NDA had chosen Modi as leader of the coalition and only he is capable of leading the country. “Even in my speeches, I had urged the people to vote for me to support Modi’s candidature as PM. Today, he’s undisputed leader, who had shown guts to take bold decision after Uri and Pulwama attacks. The nation needs a strong leader and it was obvious that our entire campaign would revolve around him,” Jadhav said.

“Modi was lauded not only for his leadership qualities, but also for developmental schemes and projects he initiated which benefited a large number of poor. Schemes like direct benefit transfer, Ayushman Bharat and others have brought a lot of changes in the lives of crores of poor. To err is human and Modi may have committed some. But only those who work, commit mistake. Ex-PM Manmohan Singh hardly worked and therefore his mistakes have not came to the fore,” he says.

Endorsing him, another Sena candidate Anand Adsul, who’s contesting from Amravati, says Modi is the tallest leader of the country and coalition partners have reposed faith in him. “Lok Sabha polls are for electing the central government and we’ve unanimously decided to support Modi for becoming the PM. Therefore, we’re banking on his charisma and his presence would be obviously visible in all our rallies,” he says.

Vijay Khasle, Dilip Bhagare and other Sena workers in Buldhana also supported Modi for his bold decision to attack Pakistan and for his policies, particularly the DBT, Ujjwala and Gharkul schemes, which according to them, are game changer.