Amid the ongoing tussle for numbers between friends-turned-foes Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party following the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, a senior state BJP leader today said that he was confident of the two parties coming together to govern the country’s richest civic body.
"I am 200 per cent sure that BJP and Shiv Sena will join hands in BMC," state's Revenue minister Chandrakant Patil said.
"A formula which is acceptable to both the parties will be worked out," he added.
The minister’s remarks came just a day ahead of the last day for the filing of nominations for the Mumbai mayoral poll.
Today, a crucial meeting of the state BJP core committee will be held here where the party is expected to decide its strategy for the mayoral poll.
The minister had recently said that his party and Shiv Sena are ‘natural allies’ who should put aside their differences and join hands once again to rule the BMC, in the backdrop of the election to the civic body throwing up a fractured mandate.
Patil had also said that there was no threat to the BJP-led government in the state.
Suspense has been mounting over who will be the next Mayor of Mumbai, with the BJP and Sena eyeing the prestigious post though both the parties do not have majority of their own in the just elected House.
The elections to the 227-member BMC threw up a hung verdict, with the Sena winning 84 seats and the BJP 82. The Congress has said it will contest the mayoral poll in BMC, which has an annual budget of over Rs 37,000 crore.
Ahead of the February 21 elections, the BJP and Shiv Sena split in BMC, which they had been ruling together for the last over two decades. However, they continue to be ruling allies at the state level and also at the Centre.
