BJP, Sena to work out power-sharing formula soon

MUMBAI: After the patch-up last week, BJP and Shiv Sena are likely to meet shortly to work out strategies to jointly contest the state assembly elections, to be held in 2009, including power sharing formula if voted to power.

Sources said the meeting, likely to take place in Mumbai after the Ganapati festival, will discuss things like which party should get chief ministership if the alliance comes to power, among other things.

The thinking in the BJP camp is that the party which gets more number of seats should get the chief ministerial berth for two-and-a-half years of the five year term and the other party may hold the post for the subsequent period.

But Shiv Sena is yet to respond to this proposal. However, both parties have agreed that they would sink their differences and jointly contest the elections as they feels it is the only way to recapture power in Maharashtra, sources said.

The Shiv Sena and BJP came to a virtual split after Shiv Sena decided to support UPA presidential candidate Pratibha Patil instead of NDA candidate Bhaironsingh Shekhawat.

Though BJP and Shiv Sena patched up after the Sena executive president Uddhav Thakeray met senior BJP leader LK Advani and BJP president Rajnath Singh in New Delhi, the BJP leaders in the state including Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari feel that the truce could be permanent only when Shiv Sena stops hobnobbing with NCP and attacking BJP in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Samana.

A beginning in this regard has already been made as Sena’s mouth piece ‘Samana’ in its editorial on last Thursday said the illness that plagued the saffron party was only ‘common cold’ and media had blown it out of proportion.