Bura Na Mano Diwali Hai: Shiv Sena's Cracker Of A Cartoon Takes Shine Away From BJP

A cartoon tweeted by Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut is a big mood. In case you missed the point, check out the cheeky cartoon showing a tiger taking a whiff of a lotus. It can’t be more symbolic than this. For the uninitiated, tiger has been associated with the Shiv Sena, whereas everyone knows about the BJP’s symbol of lotus. A day after the poll results in Maharashtra, where the BJP put up a below-par performance, the Shiv Sena on Friday took a dig at its senior ally, saying there was no "maha janadesh" and the outcome was in fact a rap on the knuckles for those high on "arrogance of power". Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had toured over 200 constituencies, out of the total 288, during his 'Maha Janadesh Yatra' (massive mandate march) ahead of the October 21 polling. On the eve of results on October 24, Fadnavis had talked about the saffron alliance winning 200-plus seats.

.. pic.twitter.com/krj2QAnGmB

— Sanjay Raut (@rautsanjay61) October 25, 2019

In an editorial in its mouthpiece "Saamana", the Sena, which also saw a drop in its 2014 tally, said the mandate has rejected the notion that elections can be swept by engineering defections and splitting opposition parties.

The Marathi daily said the "BJP broke the NCP" in such a manner in run-up to elections that people wondered if the Sharad Pawar-led party had any future. "But the NCP bounced back crossing the 50-seat mark, while a leaderless Congress won 44 seats. The results were a warning to rulers not to show arrogance of power... its a rap on their knuckles," said the Uddhav Thackeray-led party. In the first Assembly elections after the BJP's triumph in the Lok Sabha polls in May, the saffron party's electoral juggernaut met with some resistance in Maharashtra and Haryana with a resurgent Congress putting up a good showing in the northern state. The BJP hailed the verdict in Maharashtra and Haryana as a victory of its development agenda, while the opposition parties termed the outcome as a "moral defeat" for the saffron party, claiming that "jingoism does not work when people are living in misery".

Addressing party workers at the BJP headquarters in Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said people of Maharashtra and Haryana have reposed their trust in chief ministers of the two states--Devendra Fadnavis and Manohar Lal Khattar-- and asserted they will work even harder in the next five years to serve them.