Days after Shiv Sena announced its decision to contest the West Bengal Assembly elections, that party seems to have changed its mind. Party’s senior leader Sanjay Raut has taken to Twitter today to announce that his party has now decided against fighting the upcoming West Bengal Assembly polls. He said that his party is of the opinion that it has become a ‘Didi Vs All’ fight in the state of West Bengal. “All ‘M’s – money, muscle and media – are being used against ‘M’amata Didi”. For this reason, Shiv Sena has decided not to contest the elections and stand in ‘solidarity’ with Mamata Banerjee, said the Shiv Sena leader.
Referring to Mamata Banerjee as West Bengal’s “real tigress”, Raut said that his party “wishes Mamata Didi a ‘roaring’ success”.
Interestingly, Shiv Sena had only in January expressed its interest to contest the West Bengal Assembly elections after consultations with his party supremo Uddhav Thackeray. It was Sanjay Raut who had taken to Twitter then too, to make this announcement. Raut referred to the same as ‘much awaited update’ and said that the party had decided to contest the upcoming elections. “We are reaching Kolkata soon. Jai Hind, Jai Bangla,” he had tweeted.
It is still unclear as to what has compelled the party to suddenly take this contrasting decision, that to in less than a span of a month.
Shiv Sena had earlier contested Assembly elections in 2016 and general elections in 2019. Recently, Shiv Sena contested Bihar Assembly elections where it failed to win a single seat.