'If you go with them, you are finished': Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal warns parties against allying with BJP

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MP and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal on Sunday warned smaller parties against aligning with the BJP saying that the saffron party's strategy is to join their bandwagon to usurp power and then marginalise them.

Sibal said the strategy was successful in Bihar where it first aligned with JD(U) and has emerged as the main player in the state. He said it has done the same earlier in Haryana where it had played second fiddle to INLD only to marginalise it later.

He told reporters that the latest example is the Bombay Municipal Corporation election where it has emerged the topper after splitting the Shiv Sena and aligning with the Eknath Shinde faction.

"The BJP's political strategy is that in states where they are not in power or are not in majority, ally with other political parties, come to power, then marginalise them. If you go with the BJP, you are finished," he said.

Sibal said the BJP is now trying to get a foothold in Tamil Nadu and doing “temple politics” but it is not successful. “They are now trying to woo priests by taking them to pilgrim centres in north India. In West Bengal, they will have to fight,” he said.

"The (non-BJP) parties should know that the BJP marginalises you after getting into an alliance. The parties suffer and the BJP gains. If you enter into an alliance, you may get the Deputy Chief Minister chair. But your party's future is gone," he said.

Sibal, an independent MP from Uttar Pradesh, said the BMC results have shown that the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) is the "real Shiv Sena", as it has emerged with more numbers than the Shinde faction in the city that is considered the Sena bastion.

When pointed out that Shinde has taken all his newly-elected corporators to a hotel fearing poaching, he said the Sena leader may be fearing attempts by the BJP to poach the councillors. “Other parties do not have the wherewithal to poach corporators,” he claimed.

Asked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments in Assam that the BMC results signified BJP’s “positive politics”, Sibal retorted that the BJP has always played “divisive politics right from independence struggle when it did not cooperate” with Mahatma Gandhi. “Shinde has to take his corporators to a hotel. He will tell whether it is positive politics,” he added.