Bharatiya Janata Party National President Amit Shah on Wednesday met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at his residence in Mumbai. Shah was accompanied by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP President Raosaheb Danve and Education Minister Vinod Tawde, PTI reported.

The BJP chief met Thackeray amid continuing bitterness between the two parties, who are allies in the Maharashtra government. The Shiv Sena has repeatedly criticised the BJP-led government in Maharashtra and at the Centre over the past several months and often threatened to quit the alliance.

Advertisement

The meeting between Shah and Thackeray came days after the bye-election in Palghar brought differences between the two parties to the fore again. The two parties, who are ruling Maharashtra in an alliance, fielded separate candidates in the bye-election. The Shiv Sena lost the bye-election to the BJP’s candidate.

Shah is on an outreach campaign the BJP calls “Sampark for Samarthan” or “contact for support” ahead of the 2019 General Elections. Before meeting Thackeray, the BJP chief called on Bollywood actor Madhuri Dixit, as well as industrialist Ratan Tata, PTI reported.

However, Shah’s plan to meet singer Lata Mangeshkar was cancelled at the last minute. The singer said the meeting had been cancelled because she had food poisoning.

On Wednesday, an editorial in Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana mocked the BJP for its “Sampark for Samarthan” programme. The Shiv Sena said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on a world tour, and Shah on a national one, which meant that this was a “global outreach programme”. “The BJP has lost its sampark [contact] with the people,” the editorial claimed.

The editorial wondered why Shah had chosen to begin his outreach programme soon after the saffron party lost several bye-elections to state Assemblies and the Lok Sabha. It added that unlike the BJP, it does not need “poster boys” to win elections. The editorial also ridiculed Shah’s aim of the BJP winning 350 seats in the 2019 elections.