With less than a week left for the November 20 Maharashtra Assembly Elections, the opposing views of the state's two Deputy Chief Ministers—Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar—on the slogan ‘batenge to katenge’ have sparked speculations about a division within the Mahayuti Alliance.
However, during a poll rally, Fadnavis dismissed these rumours while reacting to Ajit Pawar and his faction's opposition to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's slogan ‘batenge to katenge’.
Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis are part of the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra. They and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will fight the Maharashtra Election 2024 together in an alliance.
NCP leader and Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar told news agency ANI, “We all have opposed it [slogan]. Someone told me that BJP's Pankaja Munde has also opposed this slogan.”
“A CM of a state comes here and says 'batenge toh katenge'. We immediately said such slogans will not work here as Maharashtra works on the principles of Ambedkar...I don't know what is Devendra ji's answer to this but we don't like this 'katenge, batenge',” Ajit Pawar said.
On Ajit Pawar's statement, Fadnavis said that it will take time for him to understand the public's mood as he has long held anti-Hindu ideologies.
“For decades, Ajit Pawar has stayed with ideologies that are anti-Hindu. There is no real secularism amongst those who call themselves secularists... He [Ajit Pawar] has stayed with people for whom opposing Hindutva is secularism,” Fadnavis said.
“It will take some time for him to understand the public's mood and nationalism. These people either did not understand the sentiments of the public or did not understand the statement, or they probably wanted to say something else,” Fadnavis added.
Fadnavis said there was nothing wrong with the slogan given by Yogi Adityanath and stated that it had been the country's history.
“I don't see anything wrong in Yogi ji's slogans. Look at the history of this country. Jab Jab bate hai tab gulam bane hai. Whenever this country was divided into castes, states, and communities, society, we became slaves. The country was also divided, and so were the people. That's why if we divide, we will be cut. This is the history of this country,” Fadnavis said in an interview with ANI.
“And I don't understand that if someone says don't divide, then what is the point of objecting to this?” he added.
