BJP-Sena sink differences, plan joint campaign

NAGPUR: The old camaraderie between the BJP and Shiv Sena may well be back after five years of bickering and back-stabbing despite being partners in the ruling alliance at the Centre and the state. The two parties will set the mood for Lok Sabha elections, for which they have struck a pre-poll pact, by holding joint preparatory meetings from Friday.

The first such meeting of prominent workers of both parties will be held at Amravati on Friday and in Nagpur the same evening.

This will be followed by similar meetings on March 17 in Aurangabad and Nashik and on March 18 in Pune and Navi Mumbai. A grand public rally, the first joint one, is planned for March 24 in Kolhapur, the erstwhile stronghold of Congress-NCP.

Riding on the Modi tsunami in 2014, the saffron alliance won 42 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. Retaining those in next month’s elections will be a daunting task. More so in absence of a definite Modi wave, though after post-Pulwama airtsrikes, the situation has changed in favour of Modi. It will all depend on how many seats BJP is able to retain in two biggest states of UP and Maharashtra.

Knowing that the challenge is stiff, the BJP quickly struck seat-sharing pact with Sena. It will contest 25 seats, six of them in Vidarbha and the Sena 23, four in this region.

On Tuesday chief minister Devendra Fadnavis drove to Matoshree, abode of the Sena chief, just before midnight where they decided on a joint campaign strategy. Thackeray and Fadnavis are to attend each of the six preparatory meetings before addressing the March 24 public rally. The quick sinking of differences is expected to give cohesion to the campaign. The Sena is expected to repeat the four winners of 2014 in Vidarbha — Krupal Tumane from Ramtek, Anandrao Adsul from Amravati, Bhavna Gawli from Yavatmal-Washim, and Pratap Jadhav from Buldhana.

The BJP is sure to repeat Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Hansraj Ahir from Chandrapur, Ashok Nete from Gadchiroli, and Sanjay Dhotre from Akola. However, they are looking for a new candidate from Bhandara-Gondia seat which was lost in by-election after party’s sitting member Nana Patole resigned from Lok Sabha and the BJP.

NCP’s Madhukar Kukde defeated BJP’s Hemant Patle. This time BJP may field a new candidate depending on who the NCP nominates. There is little chance of Kukde being repeated by NCP even as party strongman Praful Patel is undecided whether to jump into the fray in the middle of his Rajya Sabha term.