BJP willing to wait for Sena ‘till last moment’

MUMBAI: Ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) state executive meeting on Thursday in Mumbai, the party made it clear that it wanted an alliance with the Shiv Sena in the 2019 Lok Sabha and the state assembly polls. So far the Sena has maintained it will contest the upcoming polls solo.

Senior BJP leader and state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “We are clear that we want an alliance with the Sena for the elections. The Sena now has to take a decision. We have always had a positive approach and we are willing to wait until the last moment for the Sena to come on board.” Mungantiwar was speaking at a press conference organised at the BJP office in Dadar, where he had attended a day-long meeting of party office bearers on Wednesday. He said this decision had been taken by “the core team” led by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and added, “There is no reason for the BJP and Sena to split their votes, which would go in favour of the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).”

Mungantiwar said the seat sharing details would not be discussed publicly. “Seat sharing details will not be discussed publicly. Once the Sena chief says he is willing to have an alliance, meetings will be held for the same. Seats are not as important as the decision to go ahead together,” he said. In the last Lok Sabha polls, BJP had contested 26 seats out of the total 48 seats, while Sena had contested 22 seats. Out of its 26, the BJP had given two seats to its smaller allies (peasant leader Raju Shetti and Rashtriya Samaj Paksh’s Mahadev Jankar). The saffron parties split ties just ahead of the assembly polls over a seat sharing fracas. Sena wanted to contest 151 seats out of the 288 assembly constituencies, which would have left 119 seats for the BJP while another 18 would have gone to smaller allies.

The BJP’S olive branch to the Sena comes even as it prepares its strategy for the Lok Sabha polls next year, with the aim of strengthening its base across all 92,000 electoral booths in Maharashtra.

We are clear that we want an alliance with the Sena for the elections. SUDHIR MUNGANTIWAR , BJP leader and state finance min