Can Modi unite warring cousins?
Even though the efforts of the BJP to bring together the warring cousins heading the Shiv Sena and MNS have been stalled, it doesn’t seem to be the end of the story. As their last resort, the BJP is now planning to ask Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to intervene and he might end up playing a crucial role in bringing together the estranged cousins, however, it may not be right at this point of time.
“Senior party leaders are keen to rope in Mr Modi for this difficult task, as it is a known fact that the MNS chief enjoys a cordial relation with the Gujarat chief minister. Hence, they are very hopeful that it might yield a positive outcome,” said a senior BJP leader on condition of anonymity. He, however, added this will not happen at this juncture and will take some time.
Presently, there is no official confirmation regarding this from the party. BJP state president Devendra Fadnavis said, “Any kind of alliance is not on our agenda right now as such reports distract people from the actual issues.”
He added that the party’s agenda is primarily against corruption in the state government, its non-governance and policy paralyses. “Maharashtra has many major issues and we want the people of state to realise where the actual problem lies,” he said.
For the last many months, state BJP leaders were trying hard to reconcile the Shiv Sena and MNS, but to no avail. It was evident that the cousins did not want to work together at all. There was one instance where Sena president Uddhav had given an olive branch to Raj and asked him to come along, but Raj had rebuffed the gesture and shown no interest; now Uddhav seems in no mood to pursue it.
“The BJP knows that without Raj, it is almost impossible for the mega alliance to remove the Congress-NCP combine from power since the traditional Shiv Sena-BJP votes get divided due to the MNS factor,” said a political observer.
However, according to BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari, the MNS factor will not work this time. “The way the votes are being polarised, any factor meant only for division of votes will not get the support of the people,” Mr Bhandari said, hinting towards the MNS. He admitted though that the BJP had endeavoured to avert the possible division of votes but that the party has certain limitations. Mr Bhandari yet continues to believe that the current structure of the mega-alliance between Shiv Sena-BJP-RPI is capable of defeating the Democratic Front government of the Congress-NCP combine. “We just wanted some more anti-Congress parties to join our mega-alliance to confirm the ouster of the DF government,” Mr Bhandari said.
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