IndiaPost.com - BJP unnerved by Shiv Sena's refusal to back Shekhawat

NEW DELHI: The BJP downplayed the Shiv Sena's refusal to back Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat as an NDA-supported Presidential candidate, saying the ally's stand would have no impact on the chances of his success.

"This will have no impact on Shekhawat's poll prospects. He will emerge as the winner," BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said. He also denied suggestions that the Shiv Sena's stand would affect the party's ties with the BJP. "Certainly not. Our ties with the Shiv Sena will always remain healthy," he remarked.

Rift appeared between the BJP and the Shiv Sena as the saffron party accused its oldest ideological ally from Maharasthra of entering into a deal with the Congress by supporting UPA-Left Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil. BJP General Secretary Gopinath Munde alleged that the Shiv Sena has betrayed his party by not backing NDA-supported candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

"This is a betrayal. The Shiv Sena is into a deal with the Congress," Munde remarked, alleging the alliance partner had agreed to throw its weight behind Patil in exchange for a promise that its former Sena leader Narayan Rane would not be appointed chief minister of Maharasthra ever.

He dismissed as fake the Shiv Sena's Maratha-pride argument, recalling that the party had not supported Congress leader Sushil Kumar Shinde, a Maharashtrian, in the last election for the Vice-President.

"At that point of time it only supported Shekhawat. Where was their Maratha-pride then?" he asked. Munde also named a number of Shiv Sena members from the Rajya Sabha, who he said were all non-Maharashtrians.

Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the NDA-backed 'independent' candidate, expressed confidence that the numbers are in his favor in the next month's Presidential elections but did not reveal how he will get the required votes to get to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"This is not correct," Shekhawat told TV channels on being asked about the numbers in electoral college tilting towards the UPA-Left Presidential nominee Pratibha Patil.