'Blood and Hindutva of BJP-Sena common, hoping for reunion'

Pune: "Blood and Hindutva" of the BJP and the Shiv Sena are common and they should come together again and form a government, senior Maharashtra BJP leader Chandrakant Patil said here on Wednesday.

A day earlier, veteran Sena leader Manohar Joshi had said his party and the BJP which parted ways days after the results of the Maharashtra assembly poll were announced, can come together in near future.

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"The BJP and the Shiv Sena are natural allies for the last 30 years. Their blood and Hindutva are common..The parties should come together and form a government. The government (in Maharashtra) should have been formed jointly because the popular mandate was in the favour of both the parties," Patil told reporters here.

The senior BJP leader said he didn't have any idea about what Manohar Joshi had said.

"I do not have any idea about it but yes there is an optimism. This (demands for a reunion between the Sena and the BJP) is just an optimism. I do not know if it (a re-alliance) will work or not," Patil said.

When asked if doors are still open for the discussions with the Sena, which joined hands with rivals Congress and NCP to form a coalition government last month after snapping ties with the BJP, Patil said "doors were open at that time also".

"We did not have any ego that time (after the results of the assembly elections were announced on October 24), and that is why we had taken a lead but we were not allowed (to proceed)," he said.

When asked about reports that BJP leader and former minister Pankaja Munde is in the sulk and could chart a separate course, Patil said nobody will leave the party.

Patil said he was confident that senior leader Eknath Khadse will not do anything detrimental to the party.

"Both Pankaja Munde andKhadase are not new in the BJP. When Pankaja was young and did not know anything, she had seen Gopinathji (her late father Gopinath Munde) working with the RSS, BJP, and ABVP.

"After joining politics, Pankaja did not take much time to learn as she had received the basic training at her home," Patil said while dismissing reports that Pankaja might quit the BJP.

Pankaja, a former minister, had lost the Assembly polls against her estranged cousin and NCP rival Dhananjay Munde.

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Recently, she had appealed to her supporters to assemble at Gopinathgad--a memorial of her late father--in Beed district on December 12.

"Pankaja herself will clear the air in tomorrow's meeting at Beed," Patil added.

"In the case of Nathabhau (Eknath Khadse), he and late Gopinath Munde had expanded the BJP's base in Maharashtra. I am confident that he will not do anything that is detrimental to the party. He wanted something to say and that has been heard. Necessary action will be taken," Patil said.

Khadse had last week said that he submitted "evidence" against certain BJP leaders responsible for the defeat of his daughter Rohini in polls in Jalgaon district.

The former minister also said he would look at other options if his "humiliation" in the BJP continued.

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(PTI)