Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar disowns Chandrakant Patil comments on Sena-Babri

MUMBAI: City BJP chief Ashish Shelar on Wednesday said it would have been better had state minister and former party state president Chandrakant Patil not made any remark on the role of Shiv Sena workers in the Babri Masjid demolition.
Shelar spoke to the media after meeting Union home minister Amit Shah in Delhi. BJP has already distanced itself from Patil's remark that Shiv Sena had no role in the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992.
"Patil made those comments in his personal capacity.Perhaps it would have been better had he not made those comments. All were working to bring together various communities and groups. Balasaheb's [late Sena founder Bal Thackeray] role in it [Ram Janmabhoomi movement] was helpful and supportive..." said Shelar. Hitting out at Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, he said, "I want to ask Uddhavji what was his role in the whole [Babri Masjid demolition] operation...The party neither took any credit for it then, nor does it seek to do so now." He added that religious leaders had started the Ayodhya movement.
Patil's remarks have embarrassed BJP, which is in alliance with Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena that claims to be the genuine inheritor of Bal Thackeray's ideology.