Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena on Friday managed to save their 25-year-old alliance, for now at least. However, they still have to work out the seat-sharing agreement for the October 15 Maharashtra Assembly polls, which has been a bone of contention between the two alliance partners.
During the day yesterday, it had appeared that the alliance between the BJP and the Shiv Sena was on the verge of collapse. However, after a meeting last evening the two parties announced that they would fight the elections together and that the division of seats would be worked out amicably.
Present at last evening's meeting were top leaders of the two parties. The meeting followed BJP's outright rejection of Sena's latest formula of 119-169 seats.
In the meeting held between BJP in-charge of Maharashtra OP Mathur and Yuva Sena chief Aditya Thackeray here, besides other senior leaders, both sides reiterated their willingness to stick to the alliance.
"There were some misunderstandings which have been clarified... both sides want to continue the alliance," said senior Sena leader Subhash Desai.
"Our aim is to make Maharashtra corruption-free and Congress-free. We will do everything that is in the interest of the state. We want to continue the alliance," said Aditya Thackeray who is credited with successfully ending the impasse.
What also managed to save the alliance was perhaps a meeting yesterday between Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi over the issue. Modi is reported to have asked Gadkari to not allow the alliance to collapse, said sources.
Later in the night, the Shiv Sena core committee met to discuss the seat-sharing issue. However, no details of the meeting, which was also attended by party president Uddhav Thackeray, were available.
The BJP core group will also meet today to discus the stalemate.
Apart from seat-sharing, the other point of contention between the two parties is of projecting Uddhav Thackeray as the next chief ministerial candidate.
There has also been no commitment from the BJP on who the candidate will be or from which party.
(With IANS inputs)
No comments:
Post a Comment