Mumbai: Uddhavji’s Shiv Sena won’t cross the 50 mark in the BMC elections, says Ashish Shelar

Ashish Shelar was speaking at the executive meeting of the BJP on Sunday

Mumbaikars have been rejecting Uddhavji's leadership and his Shiv Sena in every election over the past 25 years. Even when his party's numbers were going down after our support, they kept warming the chairs because we were supporting them over Hindutva. Now things have changed. Today, I predict that Uddhavji's Shiv Sena will not be able to cross the 50 mark in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections," criticised Mumbai BJP President, MLA Ashish Shelar.

The executive meeting of the party was held at Dadar Vasant Smriti on Sunday in the presence of prominent leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "Critics are welcome. We try to learn from every criticism. We are not ones to lock ourselves in a room and talk to ourselves inside a closed room. The analysis of the results will be done at the national level," Shelar said speaking of the Karnataka results.

‘Because of our government'

"Uddhavji's Shiv Sena contested in 1997 and got 103 corporators. Between 1997 and 2002, this figure came down to 97 and later to 84. In 2012, this number dropped to 75. In 2017, the number of corporators was 84. It happened because they were part of our government. A figure of 84 was reached on that advantage. Had they not been in government in the state with us, they would have barely reached 60 at the same time. The statistics prove how Mumbaikars have rejected them," he added.

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"Mumbai has been robbed by the BMC's pick-pocketeers and MVA's seasoned thieves who excel in this business of pick-pocketing. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Mumbaikars will stand with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who are doing honest work," said Shelar.

"On the day of BMC's election results, the alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde), RPI and NDA will bag 151 seats with our mayor and at that time Uddhavji and his son will be arguing on how the EVMs were tampered with. Today I can clearly see this picture. And hence, we must all gear up and work to achieve it," he added.

A message for Raj

Giving a reply to MNS leader Raj Thackeray criticising the withdrawal of R2,000 currency notes, Shelar said the ban on the note is not a bailout but a programme to nab those who are trying to escape. "RBI's ‘Clean Note Policy' is in place and this is a policy that has been taken after debate. It was presented in various meetings. This decision has been taken in accordance with the policy on which the experts have already expressed their opinions. Is this even your topic? When the R2,000 currency note was introduced in the market, RBI and Modiji had announced that this was a temporary arrangement," he said.

84
No of seats Shiv Sena won in 2017 civic polls