Sena to go solo in '19 polls, Uddhav hits out at BJP

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Tuesday decided not to align with the BJP and go solo in the 2019 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly polls, declaring that it had so far not contested elections outside the state to keep the Hindu vote together, but that would no longer be the case.

The Sena, which had stayed away from other states to ensure that the Hindu vote did not get divided, would in future contest all Assembly polls, irrespective of the outcome, said party chief, Uddhav Thackeray.

He also slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for flying kites with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu instead of focusing on insurgency-hit Jammu and Kashmir.

The BJP government was spending money only on advertisements, Thackeray alleged and said such a dispensation should be brought down.

The Sena has shared an uneasy alliance with the BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra.

The resolution to part ways with the BJP and go it alone in the elections next year was tabled by Sena MP Sanjay Raut at the party's National Executive meeting.

"The BJP allied with the Sena in the name of Hindutva and the Sena kept its patience for Hindutva. However, the BJP in the last three years has been demoralising the Sena and using power to do so," Raut said.

Senior Sena leaders backed Raut's resolution.

The Shiv Sena held its internal polls to elect its party president and other functionaries on Tuesday, the birth anniversary of its founder Bal Thackeray.

Uddhav Thackeray, who was re-elected Sena president, criticised Modi's recent camaraderie with Netanyahu in Ahmedabad and said the nation would have been proud if he had hoisted the tricolour in Srinagar rather than flying kites.

Thackeray also took up the issue of Pakistan.

"Today, we do not know if the country is going forward or backwards. The environment in the country is such that Pakistan has become an election issue," Thackeray said.