BOMBAY, 7 October 2006 — In a game of pressure politics, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as a winner over Shiv Sena. In a victory of sorts, the Shiv Sena leadership had to eat a humble pie, within 48 hours of its announcement of severing ties with its 22 years old coalition with the BJP.

Sena supremo Bal Thackeray roared in an angry editorial in party mouthpiece “Samana” wherein he wrote: “In friendship there is no give and take. When friends betray, trust is broken. Shiv Sena experienced betrayal but we still maintained the alliance.”

But in a sudden move that surprised many, Thackeray called in BJP leader Gopinath Munde yesterday and held closed door meeting for more than two hours with him at his residence in the presence of his son and executive president of the party Uddhav Thackeray.

Emerging from the meeting, Munde told the media that the storm has blown over, the BJP alliance with Sena remains intact. Thackeray, Munde said, has agreed to surrender the claim of the Chimur seat in Vidarbha region. In return the BJP would give the Sena another assembly seat from its quota.

The BJP leader convinced Bal Thackeray that the BJP was the only party that was in a position to give the Congress a tough fight for the Chimur seat, while the Sena would find it hard to face the Congress.

A beaming Munde announced that the Sena has agreed to give up its claim to Chimur assembly constituency seat.

The two leaders had decided that in return for Chimur, the Kalyan-Dombivali assembly seat in Thane district would be contested by the Shiv Sena.

Lavishing praise on Bal Thackeray, Munde said that whenever there was a crisis between the two parties in their 22-year-old alliance it was Thackeray who had played the role of a final arbiter. And this time too it was Thackeray’s decision that resolved the matter and that the BJP agreed to it.

The patching up of the differences between BJP and Sena vanished all the smiles from the Congress and Nationalist Party (NCP) which were in a jubilant mood yesterday after the Sena announced the spilt in the alliance. The Congress and the NCP were hopeful that the turmoil between the two saffron alliance will benefit them in the November local bodies elections and the February civic polls. Narayn Rane, now in Congress, and once the blue eye boy of Thackeray senior said “ What is happening in Sena and BJP is a manifestation of simmering discontent. With Uddhav at the helm, the Sena’s decline was a certainty.

 Congress Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh commenting on the saffron alliance differences said that the developments were an “internal matter” of the opposition parties. While NCP spokesperson Ratnakar Mahajan said “Irrespective of whether the Sena and the BJP continue the alliance or not, we will have to tread our own path and establish our identity.

 Raj Thackeray, the estranged nephew of Bal Thackeray, who has floated his own Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) refusing to comment on the BJP-Sena alliance directly but said tongue-in-cheek that he was preparing for the civic polls to the Bombay Municipal Corporation but taking a dig at the Sena said “Hindutva has reached its crescendo. It was a big issue in the 90s, but it cannot make a dent in the mind of the voters today. Today people are concerned about roads, water, electricity and food” and these are the major issues which people are interested to be tackled upon by the political parties, he said.