Met Raj Thackeray to contain Congress-NCP votes: Gadkari

Nagpur: Former BJP national president Nitin Gadkari here today defended his meeting with MNS chief Raj Thackeray in Mumbai, saying it was aimed at preventing splitting of anti-Congress-NCP votes in the state. “I met Raj Thackeray as an NDA member and not as a BJP leader, just to ensure that anti-Congress and anti-NCP votes in Maharashtra do not split,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_1422629” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nitin Gadkari. Agencies.[/caption] The meeting had triggered off speculation that the BJP tried to win over MNS chief Raj Thackeray into the NDA for an electoral alliance before the Lok Sabha elections. “Our aim is to keep anti-Cong and anti-NCP votes intact to favour NDA. If MNS fields candidates across Maharashtra for Lok Sabha polls, it would benefit the Congress and the NCP,” he said, justifying his meeting with the MNS leader. Speaking about yesterday’s incidents with AAP workers in Delhi and some other parts of the country after Arvind Kejriwal’s detention in Gujarat, Gadkari alleged that the AAP is an “anarchist” party. “They have no knowledge about the model code of conduct since it’s a new party,” he said. IANS