Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the Bharatiya Janata Party want to make Mumbai a Union Territory, the Shiv Sena alleged on Sunday.

“Fadnavis prepared a ‘presentation’ of this ‘non-Marathi panchak’ [inauspicious period] in Mumbai, which shows how Mumbai can be separated from Maharashtra and presented it to the [Union] home ministry,” the party claimed in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamna. “The ‘Vikrant’ scam accused [Kirit Somaiya] and his non-Marathi builder associates have the command of the operation in their hands.”

The editorial was referring to BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, who is accused of siphoning off more than Rs 57 crore that had been collected to restore INS Vikrant, the Indian Navy’s first aircraft carrier.

The Shiv Sena had earlier made similar allegations against the BJP, saying that a group led by Somaiya was likely to move court contending that the percentage of Marathi residents in Mumbai has gone down drastically and so the city should be made a Union territory, reported PTI.

The conspiracy to bring Mumbai under Centre’s rule is not over yet, the party said in its editorial.

“It has been 62 years since Maharashtra was founded, yet the question ‘whose is Mumbai?’ has always been a matter of discussion,” it said. “The struggle of the rich for the separation of this major economic and industrial centre of the country from Maharashtra continues even today. Those who only show us dreams of an undivided Hindustan have become enemies of Maharashtra.”

Babri mosque just a structure: Fadnavis

Fadnavis criticised Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for his comments on BJP’s role in the demolition of Babri Mosque, reported India Today.

“People who are scared of removing loudspeakers from mosques are saying that they demolished the Babri Masjid,” Fadnavis said. “I was a part of Babri Masjid’s demolition. There was no Shiv Sena leader then. I don’t consider it a mosque, it was just a structure.”

On April 25, Thackeray had had said that the BJP had gone into hiding when the Babri Mosque was being demolished. “The decision to build the Ram Temple was not from your government but from the court,” Thackeray had said. “And when it was built you went with a jhola [bag] to the people.”

The Babri Masjid, located in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, was demolished by Hindutva supremacists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on land that was the birthplace of deity Ram. The incident had triggered communal riots across the country. In November 2019, the Supreme Court verdict in the matter paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Shiv Sena-BJP tussle

Leaders of the Shiv Sena and the BJP have been targeting each other since April after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray exhorted his party members to play the Hanuman Chalisa in front of mosques.

He has also asked the state government to remove loudspeakers from mosques by May 3.

Independent MP Navneet Rana and her MLA husband Ravi Rana scaled up the matter by threatening to recite the hymn outside Thackeray’s home. Both the leaders were sent to judicial custody on April 24.