Shiv Sena to move EC against BJP on MBMC civic polls

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena, often criticised for its communal undertones, has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of communalising the elections, and has decided to complain to the Election Commission (EC) after the BJP won the Mira-Bhayandar (MBMC) civic polls by a thumping majority.
The Shiv Sena's main grouse is that BJP got the controversial Jain muni Nayan Padam Sagar Maharaj to campaign for it in the civic elections by issuing controversial statements that polarised the electorate.

Sena's Sanjay Raut attributed BJP's win in Mira-Bhayandar to `money and muni'. “This man (Padam Sagar) calls himself a muni but he is not; he holds out threats, exhorts people to indulge in violence, preaches communalism and creates trouble among communities ­ he is not a muni, he is a terrorist,“ Raut claimed on Wednesday.

The Sena's Rajya Sabha MP said that his party was not against the Jain community, but only against Padma Sagar. “We are not against the Jain community, we protected them during the 1993 riots -where was this man when the Jain girls were being targeted under love jihad,“ asked the Sena MP, adding the muni was only creating communal discord in the state. Raut even threatened that his party would `take action' to teach the muni a lesson if the government does not act against him.

The Sena got furious when the Jain muni released video messages before the Mira-Bhayandar civic elections asking people to vote for the BJP . In one of the video messages, Padam Sagar said, “This election is a fight till the end, people have to choose between violence and non-violence -whether you want to save thousands of animals being slaughtered, whether you want meat to be sold outside your temples. Whether you want eggs and omelettes to be made near your homes?“ The Sena believes his message struck a chord in Mira-Bhayandar where a sizeable section of the voters are from the Marwari-Jain community , which is against consuming non-vegetarian food, and in 2015, the civic body had attracted national attention after it ordered slaughter houses to be shut for eight days during the Jain festival of Paryushan.

The BJP won 61 seats out of the 95, with Sena coming a distant second with just 22 seats ­ this seems to have provoked the party .

“The Jain community should keep away from such people. What the BJP has done by involving this muni is against all ethics. This man is another Zakir Naik spreading poison,“ he said.