Mumbai: After warring for months despite being partners in governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena have decided to contest the Lok Sabha and assembly polls in alliance.
The parties are projecting it as an alliance born out of ideology than political machinations.
Of the 48 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP will contest 25, while the Shiv Sena will fight in 23, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis said at a joint press conference attended by BJP national president Amit Shah and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, along with several other senior Sena and BJP leaders.
For the Maharashtra assembly elections later in the year, the parties will first have discussions with smaller allies regarding seat sharing, and once their share of seats is finalised, the BJP and Sena will split the rest equally.
The leaders present did not explicitly mention which party will get the chief ministership of the state, but said that “all posts and responsibilities will be divided equally”.
Fadnavis said: “The way the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has worked at the Centre and the BJP-Shiv Sena government at the state, we are confident that we will come back to power at both places. Posts and responsibilities will also be divided equally. If there are any issues, BJP president Amit Shah and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray will resolve them by discussions. Otherwise, there are no issues right now before us.”
Also read: BJP, Shiv Sena overcome bad blood, set to announce pre-poll tie-up today
Ideological alliance
Leaders of both parties tried to project the alliance as an ideological one, with Fadnavis promising to act on a range of issues raised by Thackeray, including the implementation of the farm loan waiver, crop insurance, the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, and the proposed contentious oil refinery at Nanar that needed government intervention.
Thackeray said: “We have had the experience of working together and against each other. And then, we thought if our ideology is the same, what is the point of fighting and giving benefit to those whom we were originally fighting?
“Tomorrow, there will be criticism against me for allying again, so be it. I can give them my reasons. I would prefer people of same ideologies to come together, rather than people of different ideologies coming together only to defeat us.”
Shah said, he is reiterating the same target that he had put forth before the BJP cadre earlier in Pune. “The small issues have been resolved and both parties have decided to go forward together, I am happy about it. It is not just a political alliance. It is an ideological alliance.
“Where Maharashtra is concerned, Sena-BJP alliance will win minimum 45 seats in the Lok Sabha. Now that the two parties have come together, we will be able to reach this figure easily.”
How things unfolded
Shah arrived in Mumbai at about 5 pm Monday and first held a meeting of senior BJP leaders and ministers at the Sofitel Hotel in Mumbai’s plush Bandra-Kurla Complex, close to the Thackeray residence, Matoshree.
Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, union railway and coal minister Piyush Goyal, state ministers Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Pankaja Munde, Vinod Tawde and Girish Mahajan, BJP state president Raosaheb Danve, and Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar attended the meeting.
Shah later headed to Matoshree for a meeting with Thackeray before heading to the press conference.
Also read: Eager to woo Shiv Sena, Maharashtra govt rushes to get Thackeray memorial off the ground
First benefit of the sacrifice of our brave soldiers ….not to the nation, but to the BJP
On a lighter note, the poor opposition will exclaim, Huzoor, aap karein toh Ideology, hum karein toh Mahamilaavat …