Pawar message to Sena: Ties with BJP and talks with NCP won't work

NEW DELHI: As RSS-BJP rushed to renew peace talks with Shiv Sena to avert a saffron split in Maharashtra, the NCP leadership is learnt to have made it clear to its Sena counterpart that talks cannot continue unless it formally broke off with BJP. With NCP halting talks, Sena will be denied manoeuvring room and continuation of twoway negotiations. It will have to settle for whatever deal it can secure from BJP or realign if it wants to explore an alternative.

This was the crux of the message that Sena chief Udhav Thackeray’s emissary Sanjay Raut took back to Matoshree after he met NCP chief Sharad Pawar in Mumbai on Wednesday, NCP sources said. Sena will have to withdraw the party’s representative in the Union Cabinet and snap ties with NDA in Delhi and Maharashtra to demonstrate its commitment to an alternative political plan which it has been pursuing with NCP after the post-poll rift with BJP.

It was after conveying this message that Pawar held a news conference to reiterate that the mandate was for BJP-Sena and NCPCongress would sit in opposition. His query ‘how could Raut (Sena) claim the support of 170 MLAs’ is seen as his way of telling Sena that the numbers it expects from collaboration with NCP and indirect understanding with Congress will not come without riders, which would include Thackeray taking an anti-BJP plunge.


It also appears that if Sena has a wish list for BJP on contours of power-sharing and portfolios, NCP too has one for the Sena. Pawar was aware that RSS had activated backchannel talks with Sena since Tuesday night when he met Raut. The RSS mediation had led to more open BJP-Sena peace talks by Wednesday evening and BJP was believed to be working harder to not let Sena and Maharashtra slip away.