Click to play videoNew Delhi: Pratibha Patil's candidature for President has led to souring of relations between the BJP and Shiv Sena because the latter decided to back the former Rajasthan governor, who is a UPA candidate in the presidential polls on the grounds that she is a Maharashtrian.
So, the old allies are now possible opponents with the Sena deciding to side by Pratibha in the impending presidential elections.
Meanwhile, the BJP has blasted the Sena for not standing by it when it was needed the most. Rubbishing the Sena's logic of Marathi pride, the BJP says there is a dark side to this Sena move.
“There is a secret deal between the Congress and Shiv Sena in which the Congress will not make Narayan Rane the chief minister and the Sena will support Pratibha Patil,” BJP General Secretary Gopinath Munde said.
Trouble between the two parties is nothing new with Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray saying a few months ago that he would support NCP chief Sharad Pawar if he was to become the prime minister of India. There were problems in seat sharing in the 2004 state elections as well but the Sena is confident that the alliance will survive.
“I can reply to all the accusations in the strongest of words, but I am not doing it. BJP are our friends and it will remain like that. Pratibha Patil is a Hindu and a Maharashtrian and no one should teach us on how to be both,” Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray said.
The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is based on a similar ideology and this alliance became stronger at the peak of the Hindutva agitation in the country when the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992.
But now the relationship is being tested by the regional compulsion of one party and the national requirements of the other.
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