Victory of truth: Amit Shah on EC call in favour of Shinde camp

He further said, “Those who cheat should not be spared otherwise their audacity increases.”

Earlier, in Nagpur, Shah said the Narendra Modi government doesn’t indulge in votebank politics and all decisions taken by it are for larger public welfare. He was addressing an event organised by the Lokmat Media Pvt Ltd to celebrate the birth centenary of the group’s founding-editor and freedom fighter Jawaharlal Darda, popularly known as ‘Babuji’, and the golden jubilee of the Marathi newspaper’s Nagpur edition.

Later in the night in Pune, a day after the ECI’s decision, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance under Chief Minister Shinde and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis would provide good governance. “We are here to serve the public and not like others who cheated the ideology of his father, party and workers to become chief minister of the state,” Shah said, in an attack on Thackeray at the event where Shinde and Fadnavis were also present.

For his part, Shinde said he does not want to reveal how the state government under his leadership was formed in 2022. “There was some mistake but we made correction,” he said on parting ways with Thackeray to join the BJP to form the new government.

The BJP has been fulfilling all the wishes of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, starting from constructing Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Shinde said, adding he along with other leaders have allied with “natural ally BJP”.

Shah, who is on a three-day visit to Maharashtra, arrived in Nagpur on Friday evening. On Saturday, he paid floral tributes at the memorial of RSS founder Dr B K Hedgewar and ideologue M S Golwalkar. He also visited Deekshabhoomi and offered tributes to Dr B R Ambedkar. At Deekshabhoomi, Ambedkar, along with lakhs of his followers, had embraced Buddhism in 1956.

“It’s easy to take populist decisions. But taking tough decisions keeping in mind the overall well-being of people is challenging,” Shah said at the Lokmat event.

Shah said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, “the entire world acknowledged the leadership of Modi on vaccination and its effective implementation”. He also hailed the Modi-led government for abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir. “Insurgency in the North-East has ended. Violence in the Naxal belt has considerably reduced,” he added.

(With inputs from ENS, Mumbai)