In an apparent rift in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena took a jibe at the Congress party and asked "why is the old cot (Congress) making a noise" on Tuesday.
Through the party mouthpiece Saamna, Sena said that Congress leaders, Balasaheb Thorat and Ashok Chavan had raised issues in the recent days and the latter, especially, had blamed bureaucrats for the "issues" within the tri-party coalition government in the state.
"Congress is doing good in the state. But every once in a while the old cot (Congress) makes noises.... It has now been decided that the two ministers will meet the Chief Minister and raise their points. Chief Minister will meet them and make a decision. But what does Congress want to say? Why is the old cot (Congress) making a noise?" the editorial said (roughly translated from Hindi).
The Saamna article comes in response to an interview published in an English daily in which Chavan had been quoted blaming bureaucrats for creating a rift among MVA and added that Congress will soon take up the matter with Sena chief and Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The editorial added that despite Sharad Pawar's NCP having experience of running the government and being a party to the MVA it has not had any issues as of yet.
Sena, however, said that Thackeray should meet and listen to the issues being raised by the two leaders as "the government's third leg is Congress."
"The appointment of 12 Legislative Council seats by the Governor, equally distributed, is not an issue. In the Legislative Assembly, Congress has 44 MLAs, Shiv Sena 56, and NCP 54. Therefore, allocating seats in this ratio is not an issue. Shiv Sena has sacrificed the most in the distribution of power," the editorial read.
Recounting an earlier event it added, "Congress-NCP had started a row over Assembly Speaker post. Sharad Pawar got a bit upset, but he solved the matter by saying that Congress should take Assembly Speaker post and in return, Shiv Sena should give one Cabinet post to NCP, this solved the matter. Congress state ministers had been promoted and given two Cabinet. This much does not even come in equal distribution of power. But the Chief Minister gave all this without any hesitation and then for six months there had been no noises," it added.
The editorial, however, ended with a statement that read "Uddhav Thackeray is not greedy for power. Politics, in the end, is for power and it's not like nobody wants power, but Uddhav Thackeray is not the leader who will do anything for staying in power. Everybody has a ministerial post, it cannot be forgotten that Shiv Sena's sacrifice has a huge role to play in this. However, much the cot makes noise, nobody should worry, that is all that needs to be said."
( With inputs from ANI )