BJP's 'divorce' announcement leaves door open for post poll-alliance with Sena

Mumbai: Even as BJP snapped ties with its 25-year-old ally, Shiv Sena, it seems that BJP has kept its option open of coming together after the Assembly election in case it needs support to form the government in the state. While reports over the breaking of the saffron alliance were going on for the last few days, the state BJP leaders today formally made the announcement of cutting ties with Shiv Sean. “But, our friendly relation does not end with this. It is very painful to break ties with the 25-year-old alliance which was based on an ideology. But, we will always have friendly relations with Sena in future also. We will not criticise the Sena during the Assembly election. If someone from Sena criticises us, we will not respond to it,” said Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra BJP president. [caption id=“attachment_1730229” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Going alone. Reuters[/caption] He further said that BJP’s aim is to dislodge the corrupt Congress-NCP government from the state. “Since only two days are left to file nominations, we can’t allow Congress-NCP to take advantage of the uncertainty between us. So, we have chosen our way to contest the Assembly election with four small alliance partners,” Fadnavis said. Eknath Khadse, senior BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, said that the central leadership was keen on keeping the saffron combine intact. “But, it had given the rights to the Maharashtra core committee to take the final call. Since we failed to resolve the issue with Sena, we decided to break the ties with it,” said Khadse. BJP leaders, however, blamed the Sena leadership for snapping the ties. “The negotiations over seat sharing were always struck to a figure and didn’t go beyond it. Sena never showed any flexibility on its stand and it created the atmosphere of distrust. The proposals offered by Sena were not acceptable to us as Sena was offering very few seats to the four small partners, who were brought into the saffron combine by BJP,” the state BJP president said, adding, “We cannot deceive them.” The four small alliance partners include Ramdas Athawale-led Republican Party of India, the Raju Shetty-led Swabhimani hetkari Sanghatana, the Mahadev Jankar-led Rashtriya Samaj Paksha and expelled NCP leader Vinayak Mete’s Shiv Sangram Party have decided to stay with BJP. Political observers say that the BJP has kept the option open of coming together for forming the government. “It can be clearly seen from the BJP leaders’ statements that they have kept the option open of post-poll alliance with Sena if it needs support to form the government. Also, the BJP will be in a better of bargaining over the post of chief ministerhip,” said PG Jogdand, head of the department of sociology in Mumbai University, speaking to Firstpost.