Raj Thackeray

MUMBAI: Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and MNS president Raj Thackeray met on Tuesday, triggering talks of a new political formation in state politics. The two held parleys for over an hour in a residential apartment at a corporate hub in central Mumbai. It was the second round of talks between Fadnavis and Thackeray.

BJP city unit chief Ashish Shelar did the initial spadework, calling on Thackeray at his Shivaji Park residence last month, said sources in the BJP. The BJP and MNS seem to be willing to bury the past, including Thackeray's tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah during the Lok Sabha election campaign in April and a subsequent Enforcement Directorate inquiry into the MNS president's property deal in central Mumbai.

Thackeray is set to unveil a new agenda, besides a new flag which is said to flaunt saffron, at a state-level conclave of the MNS scheduled in the city on January 23, birth anniversary of the late Balasaheb Thackeray. It is learnt that Thackeray will blend his Marathi manoos agenda with Hindutva in a bid to corner the Shiv Sena vote bank.

The BJP had turned its gaze on the MNS in the wake of the Shiv Sena turning to the NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government after the assembly election in October, said people with knowledge of the goings-on.

The Shiv Sena had a bitter parting of ways with the BJP after demanding a rotating chief-ministership of two-and-a-half years.

"A new political formation has to happen as the BJP needs a regional ally," a politician said. "The MNS will fill the gap."

With a lone MLA in the house, the MNS may have fared poorly in the recent state assembly election but the party polled a little over 12 lakh votes across the state. The MNS is keen to tap the discontent among Shiv Sena workers, many of whom are of the firm view that the party need not have taken an ideological about-turn to suit the NCP-Congress secular agenda.

There is bickering in the ruling MVA over portfolio allocation too, said sources.

"There are chances of a BJP-MNS team-up as allies in the state," MNS politician Bala Nandgaonkar said. "A new political equation is in the offing. There are no permanant friends or enemies in politics."

