On the eve of national Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah’s maiden visit to Mumbai ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly polls, tension was palpable between the saffron allies.
State BJP chief Devendra Fadnavis skipped an event he was meant to attend with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in the city on Wednesday morning. The Shiv Sena had already set the tone by publicly criticising the BJP in an editorial in party newspaper Saamna .
Mr. Shah’s decision not to call on Mr. Thackeray during his visit on Thursday has not gone down well with the Shiv Sena.
Fadnavis denies riftMr. Fadnavis insisted there were no differences between the allies. “The Mahalakshmi Puja is an important occasion in Vidarbha, so I could not go to Mumbai. I had informed Mr. Thackeray. There are no differences between the Shiv Sena and BJP,” Mr. Fadnavis told the media in Nagpur.
However, Saamna pointed to problems within the alliance. It criticised the BJP for supporting the call for a separate Vidarbha, which the Shiv Sena has always opposed. “Whether it is the BJP or anyone else, we will not allow anyone to fulfil their dream of dividing Maharashtra,” the editorial said.
The Shiv Sena has also made it clear that it expects Mr. Shah to call on Mr. Thackeray. Senior Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote said, “It is an old tradition for senior BJP leaders to visit the Thackeray residence when they come to Mumbai. We do the same when we go to Delhi. It is not a question of respecting an individual but an ideology. Mr. Shah knows the significance of this.”
