Mumbai: The BJP and Shiv Sena may have put aside any differences to form an alliance for the Maharashtra assembly election, but the two will be pitted against each other in the Kankavli seat.
Kankavli is the seat from where the BJP fielded Nitesh Rane, son of former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane, against the wishes of the Sena. The Sena had given a ticket to Satish Sawant from the seat and did not withdraw his candidature till Monday, the last day to do so.
According to sources, Sena’s cadres were opposed to the move of BJP fielding Rane since he was given a ticket immediately after he left the Congress. Rane is the incumbent MLA from the Kankavli seat, which he had won in the 2014 Maharashtra elections on a Congress ticket.
The development, just hours after Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray admitted that he compromised on the seat-sharing pact with the BJP, shows that the two parties still have some unresolved differences heading into the election.
The Sena had been pressing for at least 135 seats during months of wrangling with the BJP but later settled for 124 and two seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council from the saffron party's quota. In an interview to Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana, Thackeray said he had shown “maturity” in dealing with the alliance.
He also claimed that in 2014, when the Sena and BJP snapped ties ahead of the Assembly polls, his party put a check on the 'Modi wave' which had swept the country.
"There is no point in discussing the reasons behind the BJP and Sena contesting (the 2014 polls) separately. It was a war. There was a 'wave' at the national level, but we put a check on it in Maharashtra," he said. "Despite being in power, we have always raised voice for the cause of the common man," he added.
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