Allies important for BJP: PM Modi to NDA MPs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, addressing a meeting of NDA MPs from Maharashtra and Goa, lashed out at former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. According to sources, Prime Minister Modi criticised Thackeray without taking his name and said that he (Thackeray) “broke the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, not the BJP”. He asserted that allies are important for the BJP. Prime Minister Modi said that even when the Shiv Sena was in power with the BJP, Saamana (Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece) used to criticise him and his government without any reason, to create “unnecessary controversies, but despite this the BJP followed the coalition ethics, tolerated it and took it very lightly at times”.