Union Minister Amit Shah said those who chose to “lick the soles” of people with opposite ideologies have found which side truth was on after the Election Commission declared the faction headed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as the real Shiv Sena and gave it the ‘bow and arrow’ symbol.
Shah also said the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological bases were being completed under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adding the Centre was “moving in the direction of the Common Civil Code”.
Without naming Uddhav Thackeray, Shah, who was speaking at the launch of Marathi version of the booked ‘Modi@20’, also reiterated there was no agreement on sharing the chief minister’s post in the run up to the 2019 Assembly polls.
The Shiv Sena broke its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party after the results of the 2019 Assembly polls were declared claiming the latter had reneged on a promise to share the CM’s post with it. Uddhav teamed up with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress to lead the Maha Vikas Aghadi, till it fell in June last year after Shinde rebelled.
“Yesterday, the Election Commission did ‘doodh ka doodh, pani ka pani’ (bring out absolute truth). Yesterday, the term ‘satyamev jayate’ (truth always triumphs) was characterised,” Shah said in the presence of CM Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
The Election Commission (EC) on Friday allotted the name ‘Shiv Sena’ and its poll symbol ‘bow and arrow’ to the group led by CM Shinde, in the process delivering a big blow to Uddhav Thackeray, whose father Bal Thackeray founded the outfit in 1966.
“Those who used to shout by taking refuge of falsehood today found out on whose side truth is,” he said without naming Thackeray. “During the (2019) state election, I was the party chief. We fought the election together, put up a bigger photo of Modiji than his (Thackeray), and contested the election by knowing Fadnavis as the leader. But to become CM, (he) went on to lick the soles of people having an opposite ideology,” Shah further said.
