BJP lawmaker Kirit Somaiya who had taken the lead role in hurling darts at Shiv Sena boss Uddhav Thackeray during the 2017 municipal elections, has to pay the price for his outbursts and not been re-nominated by his party.
Bowing to Shiv Sena ally pressure , the BJP on Wednesday replaced Somaiya from the Mumbai North-East seat with its municipal corporator Manoj Kotak.
Kirit Somaiya had been confident of the party ticket and launched his election campaign nearly three weeks back. But the 65-year-old politician had increasingly figured that he may just have hit the road a little too soon.
Behind closed doors and in public, top Shiv Sena leaders had made it clear that they would not have Somaiya running for the Lok Sabha.
Shiv Sena had been bitterly opposed to Somaiya’s candidature. And the BJP’s decision to replace him with Manoj Kotal underscores its keenness to keep its ally in good humour.
Not after the tirade that, as the Sena saw it, Somaiya had launched against Uddhav Thackeray during the 2017 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections and beyond. He had accused Thackeray of corruption and alleged that the Shiv Sena-controlled BMC was in the grip of a powerful mafia run by a ‘saheb’ in Bandra.
Those attacks came back to haunt him after the Shiv Sena, which had announced its intention to contest the Lok Sabha elections on its own, agreed to stay put in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
The once-a-day barbs that Shiv Sena had been throwing at the BJP stopped soon after. So did its praise for Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders.
When BJP chief Amit Shah went to file his nomination from the Gandhinagar seat in Gujarat, Uddhav Thackeray was among the alliance partners who were by his side.
Having lost the seat , unperturbed Kirit Somaiya put up a brave face. “I am very happy that Manoj Kotak ji standing with me here has got the ticket. We all will support him and ensure he wins,” he said to media
