The growing unease between the saffron alliance partners over Nitin Gadkari’s meeting with Raj Thackeray faded on Wednesday, as senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde assured the Shiv Sena that his party would not make any kind of direct or indirect overtures to either the MNS chief or NCP president Sharad Pawar in future.
In his effort to bring back the strained relations with his party’s long-time saffron alliance partner on the even keel, Munde spoke to Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and ironed out the “misunderstanding” between the two saffron alliance partners over Gadkari’s meeting with the MNS chief on Monday.
After his meeting with the MNS chief, Gadkari had said on Monday that he had requested Raj not to field MNS candidates against the BJP-led “Maha-Yuti” (grand alliance) nominees in the lok Sabha polls so as to avoid division of the Opposition votes.
Munde assured Uddhav that the BJP would not venture into any kind of direct or indirect pre-poll understanding with the MNS.
Talking to mediapersons, Munde said that time for entering into any kind of an understanding with the MNS was over. “Both the Shiv Sena and the BJP have already completed 80 per cent seat distribution. So the time for BJP entering into any kind of an understanding with the MNS is over,” he said.
Munde also dismissed Gadkari’s hints that the NDA could still look at NCP chief Sharad Pawar as a post-poll ally if the BJP got lower number of seats than required to form a Government at the Centre. “There is no question of ever bringing Pawar to the NDA fold. I had opposed such a move earlier, and I oppose such a move even now. My opposition to Pawar is not because his party wooed a member of my family. I have opposed Pawar’s brand of politics since 1990s,” Munde said.
In a related development, Uddhav also confirmed having been assured by Munde that the BJP would not make any overtures to either the MNS or the NCP before or after the polls.