Mumbai: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's complete silence on contesting elections independently has made it clear that efforts to form a Bhara-tiya Janata Party (BJP)-Sena alliance are on track. Many Sena leaders have confirmed in private that the issue of Ram Mandir is a way to join hands with the BJP.
While addressing a Dussehra rally on Thur-sday, Mr Thackeray focused on the Ram Mandir issue. “Will you build it there or should I?” he asked alliance partner BJP. He also declared that he would go to Ayodhya, Uttar Pr-adesh, on November 25 to check the situation.
“You roamed arou-nd the world for four years, but didn’t visit Ayodhya,” Mr Thacker-ay taunted Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi.
Sena leaders saw the speech as an indication of the party returning to the Hindutva issue ahead of the Lok Sabha (LS) elections. “RSS too raised the Ram Mandir issue. Second-rank BJP leaders also raised it. Now, our leadership is also aggressively taking it forward. This means the coming election will be around the agenda of building Ram Mandir,” said a Sena state cabinet minister.
Mr Thackeray did not utter a single word about his earlier plan of contesting the elections solo. The Sena had made a resolution in the national executive on January 23 of contesting all the elections independently.
“It is a crucial time but Mr Thackeray did not speak about contesting elections alone. It shows that the BJP efforts to get Sena on board for the LS elections are on,” said the Sena Cabinet minister.
