BJP bows down before Shiv Sena as Amit Shah finally forced to meet Uddhav Thackeray.
BJP National President Amit Shah who initially was not scheduled to meet Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray has agreed to visit the latter’s residence. After sweeping the Lok Sabha polls the BJP doesn’t want to play second fiddle to Shiv Sena in the state. Sena nonetheless has always succeeded in taming down the BJP whenever it tried to flex its political muscles. The last time when Narendra Modi had visited Mumbai he failed to draw huge crowds as the BJP had tried to bring in people for attending the rally. The party didn’t invite Shiv Sena for the rally as it received flak for it. Later, both BJP and Sena held a joint rally which drew massive crowds. Even though the saffron party had performed well in the Lok Sabha election but it will have to strengthen its alliance with Shiv Sena to win the assembly election.
According to sources, “The intention of Amit Shah’s visit is not clear. He had arrived in the city and had lunch at BJP MP‘s Poonam Mahajan Rao’s house. We don’t know whether it was a personal or political visit. He has not met the BJP workers hence his visit can be termed as personal.”
The Sena had been upset at Amit Shah’s earlier disinclination to meet their chief, even though he is scheduled to visit three Ganesh Pandals in the city.
The Sena had addressed the press on the party’s “vision document” on Thursday afternoon, at the same time when Mr Shah had a meeting with BJP workers. Sena had hit back through editorials in their mouthpiece Saamna, warning the BJP against complacence after the less than favourable results in last month’s by-polls.
Amit Shah’s recent statements where he mentioned that the party should strengthen itself and win the forthcoming assembly election by wiping out Shiv Sena had irked the party leaders. Shah’s remarks had created furore among the Sena-BJP alliance as both parties has been eyeing the Chief Ministerial post.
The BJP has been demanding more seats from Shiv Sena but the Sena is yet to concede more seats. In the 2009 state polls, the Sena contested 169 of 288 seats while the BJP was given 119 seats. But now the BJP wants the Sena to part with about 15-20 seats for other allies. The tug-of-war has been intense as the Chief Minister’s post is first offered to the party that wins more seats.
However, Sena is keen to follow the 2009 formula and is reluctant to offer more seats to BJP. Both the parties are yet to arrive at a consensus over the seat sharing issue.
