After the Shiv Sena chief, it was the turn of his lieutenants on Wednesday to warm up to NCP chief Sharad Pawar. While Bal Thackeray had said that Sena, NCP and BJP should come together in the “larger interest of Maharashtra”, former Lok Sabha speaker Manohar Joshi went a step ahead by saying that it would be in the best interest of both Maharasthra and the country.And to drive the point home that the Sena means business, Joshi had the company of several leading lights of his party to back him. This includes parliamentary party leader Anant Geete, party general secretary Sanjay Raut and Mohan Rawle, Eknath Thakur and Tukaram Renge Patil.“Balasaheb has only made a proposal to Pawar Sahib,” Joshi said, underlining that it is up to the NCP chief to respond. They were reminded that Pawar’s key associate, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel, has said that Congress and NCP are “natural” allies and that there is no possibility of the NCP joining hands with Sena. To this, Raut shot back: “Balasheb has made a direct appeal to his friend of 40 years and not to NCP. Let him (Pawar) respond,” he said. As for possibilities, Raut said Patel had perhaps forgotten about Pune, where NCP has installed its mayor with the help of Sena-BJP combine.Raut, whose proximity to Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray is well known, tried to stir up an old wound of the Congress as well. “NCP and Sena share their ideology,” he claimed, adding that both are opposed to Sonia Gandhi. “The NCP was, in fact, born out of its opposition to Sonia,” he said. Although Raut did not make any mention of the foreign origin issue, the implication was unambiguous.Joshi was dismissive of any suggestion of the BJP objecting to Thackeray’s overtures to Pawar. “While we want to shake hands with NCP, we would indeed take the BJP along,” Joshi said. “The three of us together have the capacity to solve the problems of people.”It was Pramod Mahajan who had first come out with the idea of a grand alliance of Shiv Sena, BJP and Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra. However, he had to drop the idea due to a stiff opposition from Thackeray. The Sena chief, according to sources, has revived this hoping for a realignment of forces in Maharashtra after the UP polls.
