Amit Shah not to visit Matoshree?

by news
March 25, 2015

Mumbai :The Shiv sena is upset that a meeting with their supremo Uddhav Thackeray is not on the schedule of BJP national President Amit Shah’s visit to Mumbai on Thursday. Mr. Shah is not scheduled to visit Matoshree according to his programme. He will be discussing seat-sharing with allies in an internal BJP meeting.

“Every single senior BJP leader including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani had paid visit to the Thackeray residence Matoshree when they visited Mumbai. We are confident that Mr. Shah too will come for a visit,” said Diwakar Raote, senior Sena leader on Monday.

The BJP, however, did not give a commitment. “Each time BJP leaders come to Mumbai they need not necessarily meet Uddhav Thackeray. Mr. Shah’s visit is for party work, it is not an alliance meeting. Our alliance is not based on meetings. We wanted Amit Shah to take part in Ganpati Darshan,” said BJP’s Maharashtra unit president, Devendra Fadnavis.

Incidentally, Mr. Thackeray has said he will discuss the seat sharing with the BJP’s Central leadership and not State leaders.

Mr. Raote also clarified that the seat-sharing formula of 2009 would not be changed at any cost, no matter what the BJP wanted. In 2009, the Sena contested 171 seats out of 288, while the BJP contested in 117. However, after its resounding victory in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has been pushing for a larger share of seats.