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A day after Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao met his Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray, his cabinet ministers and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar in Mumbai in a bid to stitch an anti-BJP alliance, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Monday said that a political front will never be formed without the Congress.
Speaking to reporters, Raut said, "We never said that a political front will be formed without Congress."
"At the time when Mamata Banerjee had suggested a political front, the Shiv Sena was the first political party that spoke about taking Congress along," Raut said.
The Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party, and the Congress are in an alliance in Maharashtra.
The meeting came after Telangana Chief Minister Rao gave a call to Opposition parties to unite against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
After meeting Thackeray in Mumbai on Sunday, Rao said he and the Maharashtra CM agreed that change is the need of the hour.
Lavishing praise on the Telangana chief minister, Raut said, "K Chandrasekhar Rao is a very hard working leader. He faced a lot of struggles in his political life. He has the ability to lead taking all together."
Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana on Sunday said the meeting will expedite the process of political unity at the national level against the BJP.
The Telangana chief minister had earlier hit out at the BJP and said that it should be "expelled" from the country or else the country will be "ruined".
He also called for political forces coming together to "oust" the BJP from power.
As part of efforts to bring various opposition parties together against the BJP, KCR is also planning to meet his West Bengal counterpart, Mamata Banerjee.
Asked about the BJP targeting its political opponents amid the ongoing UP elections, Raut said, "It is their habit. They make such statements when they are losing. The BJP is losing in Uttar Pradesh."
To a query on some remarks made by Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil as well as his claim that Raut was trying to weaken the Shiv Sena, the Rajya Sabha member said, "He need not give us an advice, he should manage his own party which is going down everyday."
With inputs from ANI