MM Joshi meets Shiv Sena president to mend fences

Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi met Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray at Matoshree on Wednesday. Joshi had almost an hour-long meeting with the Sena president. But Sena leaders claimed that the meeting was just a courtesy call.

The meeting is however, being seen as BJP trying to mend fences with Sena ahead of the 2019 parliamentary and assembly polls. The Sena has claimed that it will go ahead and fight the elections on its own. With Congress and NCP deciding to fight the elections together, BJP is desperate to get in to a coalition with Sena. Without an alliance with Sena, BJP will have to take on three parties during the parliamentary and assembly polls, which it feels is difficult.

BJP has been trying its best to woo Uddhav. BJP chief Amit Shah in a rare meeting in June spent more than two-and-a-half hours with Uddhav and his family trying to convince the Sena chief to get in to an alliance with BJP.


The Sena has however kept the BJP guessing by continuing its criticism against the party as well as extending its support to NDA nominees for the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally called up Uddhav recently to thank him for his party’s votes for the NDA candidate.