With neither the Bharatiya Janata Party nor the Shiv Sena willing to yield ground on the number of Assembly seats they want to contest, the alliance between them seems to be on the brink.
On Friday, Shrikant Shinde had said some leaders were trying to create hurdles in the alliance in Dombivali area (under Kalyan Lok Sabha seat) for their own selfish politics and that he was ready to leave the seat since the aim was to ensure the Narendra Modi government returns with a thumping majority in the 2024 LS polls.
Going solo in civic, local body elections won't impact coalition state government.
'The BJP is in power at the Centre and in many states. It can easily go for the construction of Ram temple, otherwise it would be considered a liar and get thrown out of power,' the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana.
The return of a BJP-Sena regime after a love-hate war and gap of 15 years, demise of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde, collapse of Congress-Nationalisy Congress Party alliance and rising cases of farmers' suicides dominated Maharashtra's political landscape in 2014.
Pratapsinh Mohite-Patil defeated Congressman Anandrao Devkate by 1,22,817 votes.
Will Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena make its mark in the forthcoming assembly election in the state?
The BJP, however, retorted saying the Sena should stop interfering in its internal affairs and that the party leadership was capable of taking a call on the issue.
The BJP on Friday said its alliance with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra has been finalised with both parties having reached an understanding in the seat-sharing arrangements.
Keeping all its options open for government formation in Maharashtra, the Bharartiya Janata Party on Tuesday indicated that it is in no hurry to decide on whose support it would take while making it clear that it will not blink first in the battle of nerves with estranged ally Shiv Sena.
The impasse over government formation continued in Maharashtra on Friday, eight days after the state assembly poll results were announced, even as the Congress targeted the BJP for "cheating" the Sena.
'The bonhomie that once characterised the Shiv Sena and BJP was clearly missing this time. Is there a deeper divide than what was apparent?'
Rahul Gandhi on Friday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ally Shiv Sena over the alleged force-feeding of a fasting Muslim employee at a Maharashtra government guesthouse in Delhi, dubbing it "politics of bullying" people.
Normal life was hit on Monday in several parts of Maharashtra, particularly Mumbai where stone-pelting BJP and Shiv Sena activists tried to disrupt road and rail traffic during the 12-hour bandh called by the opposition to protest price rise.
At a time when a section of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra has hit the streets expressing displeasure over the party's proximity with the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has swung into action to bring together estranged partners BJP and Shiv Sena.
The two oldest NDA allies insisted they did not want the alliance to come apart.
If people in Gujarat are not happy (with the BJP) today, then understand their psyche, understand what people in the country feel," Sena MP Sanjay Raut said.
Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena and Republican Party of India on Tuesday appealed to people of Maharashtra to observe bandh on May 31 to demand complete rollback of the steep petrol hike of Rs 7.50 per litre.
Amid bitterness in ties with ally Shiv Sena, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has fired a fresh salvo questioning the opposition to his decision to provide security to Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali when Sena Chief's family had hosted cricketer Javed Miandad from that country.
The over two-decade old BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is intact and the two parties will contest the Lok Sabha polls together, BJP President Rajnath Singh said in Mumbai on Tuesday.
'Shinde and Fadnavis have different working styles and certainly there is a crack that has come between them.'
A close aide of the former chief minister said he was busy holding meetings at his residence ahead of the two-day special session of the Maharashtra legislature from July 3.
Maintaining that anything is possible in politics, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde on Sunday called for a tri-partite alliance of Shiv Sena, BJP and Raj Thackeray led-Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to pull down the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine.
The BJP said moderate and liberal Muslims take pride in raising nationalist slogans like this but hardliners with medieval beliefs raise such issues for their own sectarian interests.
The recent outbreak of violence in Mumbai had its echo in the Lok Sabha on Monday with Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party members storming the Well, protesting the "total failure" of the Maharashtra government to check it. Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Shiv Sena leader Anant Geete condemned the incidents of "fanatic youths" attacking the police and the media and even damaging a martyrs' memorial in Azad Maidan.
'Take a walk down the potholed streets of India's financial capital, remember how the monsoons flooded the city, get a whiff of the garbage piling up everywhere, and you will know just how badly the local government is run.'
Even as the Opposition is cornering the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance over various issues, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Friday shared dais with Shiv Sena-BJP leaders at a function to mark the 75th birthday of former Lok Sabha speaker and Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi.
Thackeray not only attended a meeting of National Democratic Alliance partners on Monday night, but also had separate talks with BJP president Amit Shah during which the two leaders discussed a host of issues, and agreed to meet more often for better coordination, a senior BJP leader, who was present during the confabulations, said.
'They should not forget that had we decided not to rebel, they would still be chanting slogans from the footsteps of the Vidhan Sabha.'
With the BJP-Shiv Sena relationship at an impasse ahead of the November 12 trust vote in Maharashtra, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that the Shiv Sena problem will solve itself.
Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena on Saturday appeared to have resolved their differences with the latter deciding to nominate Rajya Sabha member Anil Desai to be included in the Union Cabinet when Prime Minister Narendra Modi reshuffles and expands his ministry on Sunday.
Maharashtra's Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council and senior BJP leader Vinod Tawde refuted reports of an alliance of the Shiv Sena-BJP and the Republican Party of India (Athawale) with the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
In an important decision, the new government in Maharashtra on Thursday announced lifting of the stay on the construction of Mumbai Metro-3 car shed at the controversial site in the Aarey Colony, a green belt in the city's western suburbs.
Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah on Thursday described the upcoming assembly elections as the second leg of the party's "Congress free India movement."
The Devendra Fadnavis-led government in the state is most likely to get another term.
Maharashtra is going to polls later this year and the leaders of BJP-Shiv Sena alliance do not want the hike to spoil their chances of winning the polls.
Being the single largest party after the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance, the Bharatiya Janata Party is projecting senior leader Eknath Khadse for the post of Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly, though its ally Shiv Sena is in no mood to part with it. Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray's statement -- "numbers won't determine who gets to hold the post"-- seems to have no impact on the BJP, which is projecting Khadse for the post.
Asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party's alliance with the Shiv Sena is firmly in place, senior party leader Gopinath Munde on Saturday said that the saffron combine cannot accommodate a third partner. Addressing a press conference after inducting former Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Nana Patole into the party fold, Munde who has been made in-charge of the BJP for the upcoming assembly elections, said there will be no change in the seat sharing formula.
