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Prakash Javadekar, the Union minister of information and broadcasting, is currently based in Mumbai to coordinate the Bharatiya Janata Party's poll campaign. Edited excerpts of a talk with Sanjay Jog:
The Shiv Sena has charged the BJP with backstabbing and being responsible for breaking your 25-year alliance.
The BJP was keen for the alliance to survive. There was talk of 50:50 seat sharing, and for give and take on a few seats. We had contested 120 seats (of the 288 total) in the previous Assembly election and wanted 10 more. The Sena could have offered their worst seats but they did not agree. The alliance is now a closed chapter for the Assembly poll; it is intact in the local and civic bodies. We in the BJP are focusing on the fight for the people of Maharashtra and their demand to dislodge the corrupt Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance, in power for 15 years. The BJP is not at all targeting our former ally.
Is BJP looking at a post-poll alliance with the Sena, in the wake of a fractured mandate?
We will meet on October 19. We are reaching out to voters with an appeal for a complete majority to the BJP.
Why are you relying so much on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his 23 rallies in Maharashtra?
He has emerged as the national leader. He is prime minister of the country and heading a government which has received a full majority. It is but natural for Modi to address meetings in the state for the BJP’s success.
Both Uddhav Thackeray (head of the Shiv Sena) and Raj Thackeray (of its MNS rival) have criticised the BJP in this regard.
Why are they scared of Modi? He successfully ran the party’s campaign in the Lok Sabha election and now he is coming to the state with an appeal for a comfortable majority.
However, you are unable to project any leader as the chief minister. Is it part of a poll strategy or due to differences within the party?
Our party has decided not to project anybody as the chief ministerial candidate. In the past 40 years, no party had made such a projection.
Is there no face (to the campaign)?
This is about politics; our state parties have taken different positions. We’d projected Harsh Vardhan as CM candidate in Delhi, Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh and Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan. However, we did not project anybody in Uttarakhand.
Are you a contender for CM?
Are you not happy to see me in Delhi? There will be only one CM. After the poll results, the legislators will decide on the leader.
The BJP is also under attack for an understanding with NCP.
There is no such understanding. The BJP was at the forefront to expose an NCP minister’s corruption. I don’t want to comment on who is actually close to NCP. We want to bring in susashan (good governance) and defeat the Congress-NCP, which were responsible for dusashan.
