NEW DELHI, July 21: Thanks to Shiv Sena’s firm hold at the mass level across Maharashtra, the BJP leadership as of now is in no hurry to end its ties with its oldest ally, a key party leader said here on Saturday.
“If Hindutva is a mother like phenomenon, Shiv Sena is like blood relation ally. Why should we discard them? At least, we will not take the first call,” a senior BJP leader from Maharashtra said here.
The source maintained that there are compulsions for BJP as Sena continued to have “strong presence at the ground level” in the western state. “This fact cannot be underestimated”.
“We know, they stayed away from the No Trust motion. I do not know what Mr Anant Geete is thinking. How will he face the next cabinet meeting?
Many leaders spoke about eye-to-eye factors in politics during No Confidence motion debate, but tell me how will Geete see eye-to-eye with his colleagues?,” the BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity.
Answering questions, the leader sought to sum up the paradox pretty well when he said, “logic and Shiv Sena cannot go together. These have happened in the past too…..that is the whole issue”. The BJP leaders would, however, assess the ground situation in Maharashtra, the source said adding the Lotus party leadership is definitely baffled by Sena’s decision to stay away from the Lok Sabha proceedings on Friday.
“Our president Amit Shah met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and the meeting went of well. We hoped they would stick with the alliance when the need of the hour was to present a united face of the NDA…..but Sena’s politics has often defied logic,” the party leader said.
However, the BJP leader also threw away a few questions for Sena leadership asking what will the Shiv Sena really do with their “ideological commitment for Hindutva in the present of leaders like Mamata Banerjee”. “We know their political predicament and therefore best of efforts by a section of Shiv Sena leaders and feelers they got from some journalist-turned-Congress emissaries, the Sena leadership finally declined to vote with the Congress,” the source said.
“We got a setback but those who believed the Sena would walk out of the NDA and vote with Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi, they were upset yesterday,” the source said trying to draw some consolation. The BJP leaders also say Uddhav Thackeray’s decision to finally boycott the Lok Sabha proceedings came after MNS leader Raj Thackeray had lately got hyperactive with his agitations and other issues and threatened to ‘weaken Shiv Sena’.
“The reading in Uddhav camp was that if the Sena MPs voted for the Modi Government after attacking it so much, they would lose all credibility and this could have benefitted MNS,” the BJP source said. (UNI)
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