Uddhav accuses BJP of ‘splitting’ parties to win polls

Nagpur Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of engineering "splits" in other parties and claimed it was doing so as it was not confident of winning elections on its own. Thackeray, who was on a tour of Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, also accused the BJP-led Centre of raising issues like the Uniform Civil Code ahead of polls just to divert the attention of people for electoral gains. After the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls, Thackeray broke ties with the BJP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with the help of the NCP and Congress.

The MVA government collapsed in June last year after Shinde broke ranks with Thackeray. Shinde later formed government in alliance with the BJP. On July 2 this year, Ajit Pawar led a split in the NCP, founded by Sharad Pawar, and joined the Shinde-BJP government as deputy chief minister.