BJP-Sena ties back to normal after trade-off

NEW DELHI: Ties between the BJP and Shiv Sena, which appeared to be tottering on the brink of a collapse following the former's’ insistence on contesting the by-election to Chimur assembly seat in Maharashtra, were brought back to some normalcy on Friday after the Sena withdrew its claim on the Vidarbha constituency.

In return for being allowed to contest the Chimur assembly seat, the BJP agreed to concede the Kalyan-Dombivali seat on the outkirts of Mumbai to the Shiv Sena.

The seat-exchange formula was worked out in a meeting held this afternoon in Mumbai between senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde, who had his party’s central leadership’s backing, and Sena chief Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav, and thus ended days of acrimony between the two sides. At one stage, it appeared as if the alliance between the two saffron outfits had all but snapped, as the Sena made it clear that it’d not buckle before the BJP’s pressure tactics.

In the end, leaders on both sides realised that there was space for only one saffron formation, and not two, in the state. A split between the two parties would have only strengthened the secular NCP-Congress alliance. There was also a realisation within the Sena camp that its strength in the state had waned of late following a spate of desertions from the party.

Talking to reporters outside the Thackerays’ residence Matoshree in suburban Bandra, Mr Munde announced that the Sena had agreed to give up its claim on Chimur. The former Maharashtra deputy chief minister paid tributes to Mr Thackeray and said that whenever there were differences between the two parties in their 22-year-old alliance, it was the Sena chief who had played the role of the final arbiter. “This time too, it was Mr Thackeray’s decision that resolved the matter and the BJP agreed to it,” he said.

In the past, Mr Munde said it was the late Pramod Mahajan and Mr Thackeray, the architects of the alliance, who played the role of peacemakers if any dispute cropped up between the two parties. “But now that Mr Mahajan is no more, BJP workers looked up to the 79-year-old Sena patriach for resolving any dispute,” he said.

Uddhav Thackeray, the Sena’s executive president who was with the BJP leader outside Matoshree, congratulated Mr Munde observing that the BJP strongman from Marathwada has filled the void left by Mr Mahajan.

Asked if his party’s workers in Chimur, who were strongly opposed to the idea of conceding the seat to the BJP, would be happy, Uddhav said that his father’s decision had always been final for the party. “Since we have got a good seat in lieu of Chimur, there is no reason for (any further) dispute,” he maintained.