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| They are our friends, says Shiv Sen |
| Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray with the former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi and Sena leaders Neelam Ghore and Sanjay Raut at the party
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| INDIA
, 27-June-2007
1:36:12 AM |
| Defending its position on the choice of candidate for President, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday dismissed talk of any strain in the alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said his party was not interested in breaking its alliance with the BJP. He refused to respond to the strong criticism from BJP national general secretary Gopinath Munde in this regard. Stating that he did not want a split on the issue, he hoped that the BJP would not take this any further.
He also admitted that he had called Mr. Munde. “They are my friends and I have requested them to understand our position. Our stand is very clear on this issue and I don’t want any differences,” he explained. He clarified that the Sena was backing a woman from Maharashtra; this does not mean that it was backing the Congress. He also said that it was a unanimous decision of the party.
The presence of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan is being missed at this juncture and Mr. Thackeray, in response to a question, admitted that had Mahajan been alive, he would also have supported Ms. Patil’s candidature as he would have understood the situation.
He pointed out that such things had happened in the past when the BJP had supported the Congress candidate K.R. Narayanan and the Sena had backed T.N. Seshan. Even at that time, the alliance did not break, so why should it now, he asked. Referring to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, he said that though he was an NDA candidate, the Congress had supported him.
He said that no one can deny that Ms. Patil is a Hindu and the BJP need not teach the Sena what Hindutva is. Drawing parallels on the question of national pride, Mr. Thackeray said that all of India was proud about astronaut Sunita Williams even though she did not live here.
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