NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday alleged that the BJP’s political strategy in states where it lacks a clear majority is to form alliances, come to power and then marginalise its partners, claiming that this approach was now playing out in Maharashtra.
In a post on X, Sibal said the strategy had earlier succeeded in Bihar and was being replicated in Maharashtra. The message for opposition and smaller parties in the Maharashtra civic polls, he said, was that if they aligned with the BJP, they would eventually be sidelined.
Addressing a press conference later, Sibal said the Maharashtra civic polls carried important messages for the state as well as for national politics. “At the outset, I would like to tell people that the annual Budget of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is Rs 74,000 crore and so it is very important. In the last civic polls, Shiv Sena, which was united at the time, had won and was at the helm of the BMC,” he said.
He added that the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena has now lost control of the civic body. “So the graph of all parties is going down, apart from that of the BJP,” Sibal said.
Describing this as part of a broader pattern, Sibal said, “Where they feel they are weak, they form an alliance with a smaller party and eventually come to power and marginalise it,” citing the Lok Dal in Haryana and JD(U) in Bihar as examples.
He said the developments should serve as a warning to parties aligning with the BJP. “Look at what has happened to Ajit Pawar. Now Shinde has also taken the winners to a hotel as he knows the BJP buys and breaks leaders,” Sibal said.
“These elections have also clearly shown that the Shiv Sena belongs to Uddhav Thackeray and not Eknath Shinde,” he claimed.
Sibal further said that national politics was now polarised between what he described as a “north pole” and a “south pole”, with the BJP at one end and the Congress at the other. “The smaller parties have to decide whether to get marginalised by aligning with the BJP or join hands with the opposition to fight it,” he said.