Two months after they drifted apart over the presidential polls, the BJP and Shiv Sena buried their differences on Tuesday at a meeting between Leader of the Opposition L K Advani and Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray.

“We have decided to sink our differences, revive the old spirit of friendship between the two parties and defeat Congress in the next elections,” Uddhav told The Indian Express. When asked if the old seat-sharing agreement had been revived or the Sena had agreed to a rotating chief ministership half-away through a five-year term in case of victory to accommodate rising ambitions of Maharashtra’s BJP leaders, Uddhav said, “These issues were not even on the table. The old formula—171 Assembly seats for Sena and 117 for BJP—continues and so does the exclusive Sena claim over the chief ministership. Let us rewind to the point where we developed differences with the BJP. Since the whole crisis developed when the Sena backed UPA nominee Pratibha Patil in the presidential polls, we picked up the thread from there and decided to forget the past and work unitedly again.”

Advani and Uddhav first talked to each other alone for an hour at the former’s Prithviraj Road residence, followed by a lunch attended by BJP President Rajnath Singh, Maharashtra BJP leaders Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari and Sena leaders Manohar Joshi and Sanjay Raut.

Earlier, speaking to reporters in the presence of Munde and Gadkari, his two detractors in the BJP, Uddhav was neither categorical about continuing the old seat-sharing arrangement, nor about the exclusive Sena right over the chief ministership. “Are you a reporter or a BJP leader?” Uddhav sought to know when a reporter asked if the old seat-sharing formula was intact. He skirted the issue about the chief ministership too. “The chief minister will belong to the alliance,” Uddhav said while responding to a question about the top slot. The decision would be made by top leaders of the two parties—Bal Thackeray, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani—when “power comes,” he added. The state BJP has for long insisted on an upward revision in its share of Assembly seats.

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