No NDA without Shiv Sena, Akali Dal, says Raut

The Shiv Sena on Sunday said it appreciates the Shiromani Akali Dal's decision to quit the National Democratic Alliance in the interest of farmers.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut also said the Shiromani Akali Dal's decision to part ways with the NDA was a sad development.

The SAD, which announced its decision to snap ties with the NDA on Saturday night, is the third major party to walk out of the BJP-led coalition in last couple of years after the Shiv Sena and the TDP.

Last year, the Shiv Sena parted ways with the NDA after its tussle with the BJP over the issue of sharing the chief ministerial post in Maharashtra on a rotational basis.

"Shivsena appreciates Akali Dal's decision to break it's ties with NDA in the interest of farmers," Sena's chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut tweeted.

Earlier, talking to reporters here, Raut said the Shiv Sena and the SAD were "pillars of the NDA".

"Both the parties stood by the BJP through thick and thin, while others joined when they smelt power. The Shiv Sena was forced to quit the NDA last year while the Shiromani Akali Dal quit over farm bills. We felt sad over the development," the Rajya Sabha member said.

The Shiv Sena and the Shiromani Akali Dal were the "NDA's pillars" which are no longer there," he said.

The present dispensation at the Centre cannot be called NDA. "This is a different alliance," Raut said.

The BJP has a comfortable majority on its own in the Lok Sabha.

The SAD on Saturday said the decision to quit the NDA was taken because of the Centre's stubborn refusal to give statutory legislative guarantees to protect assured marketing of farmers crops on MSP and its continued insensitivity to Punjabi and Sikh issues like excluding the Punjabi language as the official language in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Narenda Modi government has maintained that the MSP (minimum support price) system will stay, and has accused the opposition of misleading farmers on the issue.