Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Friday, ahead of the Assembly session that starts on Monday. This will be his first meeting with Mr. Modi in the Capital since being sworn in as CM.
After the Shiv Sena broke ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form government with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party in the State, there has been a lot of bad blood between the former allies.
Most recently, in a meeting of the State BJP council in Navi Mumbai, the party’s national president, J.P. Nadda, called the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) an unnatural alliance, saying the mandate was with the BJP. He also said that people would soon see a difference of opinion between the MVA allies.
The Sena, meanwhile, has been criticising the BJP through its mouthpiece Saamana over several issues, the recent ones being the BJP’s performance in the Delhi Assembly elections and the preparations for U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to India.
However, there are also signs of strife between the MVA allies since the Centre transferred the Elgaar Parishad cases to the National Investigation Agency.
Following intense speculation on Thursday that the CM would meet Mr. Modi in Delhi on Friday, Sena MP Sanjay Raut confirmed the meeting in a tweet. He said it would be a courtesy visit and that there was no need to delve into details.
This will be Mr. Thackeray’s first meeting with the PM in Delhi as Chief Minister. Before this, the CM had gone to Pune to receive Mr. Modi, who was visiting the city for an event.
In December, the CM had written to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying Maharashtra is awaiting dues of ₹15,558 crore, including GST compensation up to November 2019, from the Centre.
