Congress-Shiv Sena tie-up in the offing in Maharashtra?

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, February 15

An informal alliance between the Shiv Sena and Congress for elections to some local bodies in Maharashtra has sparked off speculation of the two parties tying up at the state level.
Both parties have quietly entered into seat-sharing arrangements ahead of elections to the local bodies of Alibaug, Pen and Karjat on the outskirts of Mumbai. As part of the deal both parties withdrew candidates from seats that are to be contested by the other partner.
Apart from the BJP, the new partnership aims to dislodge strong regional players like the Peasants and Workers Party and the Nationalist Congress Party.
“These partnerships have been forged at the local level and it has nothing to do with the state- or central-level leadership of the two outfits,” a Congress leader said. “We are acting on our own and have not consulted Matoshree (Uddhav Thackeray’s residence) on this,” Mahindra Dalvi, head of the Raigad unit of the Shiv Sena, has been quoted as saying.
The local-level alliances between the two outfits come days after Uddhav Thackeray hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “raincoat” remark against his predecessor Manmohan Singh. Thackeray went on to say that had Modi heeded the words of Singh, a lot of people would not have been inconvenienced by demonetisation.
The BJP has, however, hit out at its former ally, the Shiv Sena. “The Congress and Shiv Sena have exchanged gifts on Valentine’s Day,” state Education Minister Vinod Tawde told reporters on Tuesday. He alleged that the Shiv Sena had a secret deal to help the Congress in 10 seats while the former expected the favour to be returned in 40.
That the Mumbai unit of the Congress Party is headed by Sanjay Nirupam, a former Shiv Sainik, has added plenty of grist to the BJP’s mill.
For the record, however, both the Shiv Sena and the Congress have denied any possibility of an alliance after the local body elections.