Following this development, the Shiv Sena-BJP ruling alliance in the State is likely to recommend the dissolution of the State Assembly sometime in July.

The politically-crucial State of Maharashtra is scheduled to go to polls in March next year. But the split within the Congress and the formation of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) by the expelled troika of Pawar, P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar, has given the alliance a fresh lease of life. Hence the decision to go in for early Assembly elections.

Accompanied by some senior State BJP leaders, Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde met Vajpayee on Tuesday in order to impress upon him the need to go in for Assembly elections along with the Lok Sabha polls.

The meeting was also attended byBJP chief Kushabhau Thakre and Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan.

In this meeting, Mahajan and Munde reportedly favoured holding simultaneous elections in the State.

"Congressmen in Maharashtra are split down the middle. If Assembly elections are held in September, we'll certainly be in an advantageous position," Mahajan told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

It is generally believed that alliance government in Maharashtra would have been on a sticky wicket if the Maratha strongman had not crossed swords with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The alliance itself was so far divided on the issue, with Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray bitterly opposed to it. But he too seems to have veered round to the idea after Munde met him last week and explained to him the advantages of simultaneous polls.