BJP-Shiv Sena marriage over? Amit Shah gets ready to divorce Uddhav Thackeray

The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance has met with its cul de sac. This Sunday when BJP president met the Maharashtra unit of the party in Mumbai, the instruction to the cadre was loud and clear: Get ready to go solo all across the State in 2019. Amit Shah wants the Maharashtra unit of BJP to get battle-ready in all 48 constituencies of the State.

This decision comes barely 48 hours after the trust vote in Parliament in which Shiv Sena stayed away in spite of all its members sitting in its party office in the House. On the same day, Saamna, the Sena mouthpiece, called BJP a “butcher”.

Shah chalked out a few things for the State unit. He wants booth-wise cadre mobilisation across the State. He also instructed them to find five best party workers from every booth who will spearhead the movement locally. Those five workers will lead a team of 20 in every booth. Sources say the BJP president wants a list of names who can be termed as influencers in every constituency. Shah asked them further to chalk out details of voters in every booth, temples in each booth and the priest in those temples.

Shah asked the cadre to chalk out a list of government schemes like Ujjwala Yojana and Jan Dhan Yojana, which are to be widely propagated in the rural areas. In the urban and semi urban circles, Shah wants the decreasing rates of GST to be advertised through the cadre. He has tasked the Mumbai unit to devise a strategy to take on the Sena in the urban centre where Uddhav Thackeray’s party is relatively better known.

Shah was indifferent to the barbs in the editorials of Saamna all this while. In fact, strong statements by party MP Sanjay Raut against the Prime Minister was ignored, too.

However, the BJP has taken the behaviour of Shiv Sena on the day of the no-confidence motion seriously. Many in the BJP’s circles are quite openly calling the Sena’s abstention “treachery”. Does that mean the marriage of over 25 years is over? Not yet.

At the Centre, the two parties are still in alliance — as in the State. A highly placed source suggests BJP won’t be closed to backchannel talks though Prakash Javadekar. But neither Shah, nor Prime Minister Modi will make efforts to meet Thackeray from now on.

Also, chances are high, even if the Sena approaches the BJP to mend the relationship, they will be told to negotiate with Javadekar and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Meanwhile, Sena chief Uddhav Thackrey in an interview to Saamna hit back at BJP after its 'Ekla Chalo' mode, 'We don't have only one friend. We're friends of the public'.

That brings us to the same question once again: Where does the alliance stand as of today? The answer is simple, the marriage is on the rocks and the BJP is getting ready for a divorce.

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