Sena to go solo in 2019 but will stay put in govt

Even the best friends have to part, and the Shiv Sena and the BJP have hardly been the best of pals.

On the birth anniversary of Balasaheb, the Shiv Sena announced that it has decided to end its uneasy 29-yearold alliance with the BJP and said it will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections independent of its ally at the Centre and in the state.

However, there will be no dilution of the ‘Hindutva’ plank -- the glue that held both the saffron parties together in good old times. ‘‘We will fight elections in every state for the cause of Hindutva. I take this vow today," Thackeray said.

This is the second time in four years that the Shiv Sena has decided to go it alone. In the October 2014 Assembly elections, the alliance had broken down and both parties fought the elections independently. Later, the BJP emerged as the single largest party while the Shiv Sena sat as the main opposition party for a month, and then joined the state government.

But even as the Sena stayed in the government, it continued to snipe at its ally at the drop of a hat. Even in his address on Tuesday, Thackeray attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his foreign visits. "The Prime Minister calls himself 'Pant Pradhan', but all he does is travel abroad." "He (Modi) took Israeli PM to Ahmedabad. Why not to Lal Chowk in Srinagar? Why couldn't he have done a roadshow in Srinagar? Had he hoisted the Tricolour at Lal chowk, we would have felt a sense of pride towards our PM," Uddhav Thackeray said.

Indicating that the party considers its alliance with the BJP a liability, in view of its waning popularity, Uddhav said they are aiming at winning 25 out of the total 48 seats in the Lok Sabha and 150 out of the 288 in the Assembly polls.

According to political observers, Sena has no problem in sharing political space with the BJP but it does not want to play second fiddle. The BJP, having won 22 seats in the 2014 LS poll, as against 18 seats of the Sena, had lost no opportunity to rub it in that it was the dominant partner in Maharashtra.

It had even hobnobbed with the NCP, much to the discomfort of the Sena. Later, Sena ministers were denied plum portfolios. All this has much to do with the Shiv Sena’s unanimous decision to go solo in all future elections.

Uddhav has been re-elected as party president while his son, Aditya, has been elevated as member of the party executive, keeping his post of Yuva Sena president intact. According to observers 27-year-old Aditya is on the ascendance and is likely to be projected as the youthful pan-India face of the party.

Dwelling on micro factors, a Sena leader said: "The BJP has taken a beating because of its inept handling of the loan waiver scheme for farmers, the Bhima–Koregaon violence and the Maratha reservation issue. This can have a cascading effect on the Sena’s prospects as well."

"We had an ideological alliance with the BJP but in the past three years they have not left one single opportunity to demoralise us," MP Sanjay Raut said. I AM USED TO IT: FADNAVIS

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has downplayed the Shiv Sena threat to end their alliance. "We are used to it," Fadnavis said. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Fadnavis, in an exclusive interview with India Today Television, said, "Let's wait, they have been saying many things. As of now we are in alliance in the government and this government will complete its term." The Chief Minister added, "There is little impact on governance by such threats. Have seen similar comments in the past as well and am used to [them] by now. The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance is right now functioning smoothly."