Uddhav meets Advani to iron out differences

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 25. A meeting at the office of the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, in the Parliament House here today became the occasion for sorting out differences between the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ally, Shiv Sena.

Mr. Uddhav Thakre, son of the Mr. Bal Thakre, the Sena chief, and Mr. Pramod Mahajan, BJP's chief trouble shooter in Maharashtra, and Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Shiv Sena Minister in the Union Government, were present.

The 20-minute meeting discussed the political situation in Maharashtra, where renewed attempts have been made to topple the Congress(I)-NCP government, and the Sena's recent complaints that it was not consulted on key decisions taken by the Union Government.

Mr. Advani assured Mr. Thakre that the BJP continued to value the Shiv Sena as an old and trusted ally, which was ideologically close to the BJP, unlike its other allies in the National Democratic Alliance.

The basic differences between the two parties apparently relate to Maharashtra where during the assembly elections there was a lack of trust. The Sena suspected that the BJP had plans to ``drop'' it and ``embrace'' the newly-formed Nationalist Congress Party to form the government.

But the electoral arithmetic did not work to favour this plan of the BJP. Since then, there has been mistrust between the two. Recently, some Sena MPs criticised the functioning of the NDA and its decision-making process at a press conference, adding to the misunderstanding.

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