Mumbai: A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tried to convince him for joining hands with Shiv Sena in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Tuesday held a secret meeting with the party’s top leaders in Mumbai.

Shah landed in Mumbai from Delhi in the afternoon and went into a huddle with BJP’s organisation secretaries V. Satish and Vijay Puranik at an undisclosed location in western suburb Vile Parle. While the details of their meeting were not made public, a source in the party claimed they discussed the party’s poll preparedness in view of the elections. The source said BJP is fully prepared to contest the election without Shiv Sena. “We have built our organisational network in a strong way. You will see the result in near future,” he said.

Interestingly, Fadnavis has been insisting that both BJP and Shiv Sena will lose sizable votes if they contest the elections separately.
Fadnavis on Monday late night, met Shah in Delhi. The sources claimed, Fadnavis want to tie up with Sena in next polls as the recent survey conducted by an agency has shown 40 per cent of the sitting legislators are likely to lose the assembly election. Whereas the performance of nearly half dozen from sitting 22 Members of Parliament too is not good.

Though the BJP source claimed the party will perform better than 2014 polls, senior party minister worried about retaining in power at the state. “This time, there is no Modi wave and anti incumbency factor is in swing. Only development work will save MPs and legislators in next poll. If Sena will contest separately, both BJP and Sena will loss several seats,” said the union minister who do not wanted to name.

Shah took stock of the organisational strength and weaknesses in his meeting in Mumbai, claimed the source. He discussed on possibilities of contesting election separately and with the Sena. “The decision of alliance with the Sena is expected to come very soon, might be before Dusshera rally where Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray wil address the rally and may take strong stand against the BJP,” he claimed.