The Shiv Sena joined the Opposition chorus in lambasting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre for allegedly ‘mishandling’ the evacuation of Indian students and citizens stranded in strife-torn Ukraine while remarking that the Centre would have to bear responsibility for the unfortunate death of an Indian student who was killed in Kharkiv on Tuesday.
An editorial in the Sena’s mouthpiece Saamna accused the BJP leaders of being more focused on holding roadshows in poll-bound States rather than acting early to mitigate the sufferings of students stranded in the Ukraine. It further accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of failing to take the views of the Opposition into consideration and of “politicising” the evacuation affair by deliberately naming it ‘Operation Ganga’ with an eye to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.
“At a time when the war clouds between Russia and Ukraine were already gathering, Prime Minister Modi, the Defence Minister [Rajnath Singh] and the Home Minister [Amit Shah] were busy campaigning for the BJP in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Manipur instead of trying to evacuate students as quickly as possible,” said the editorial.
