After criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for nearly five years over a range of issues, the Shiv Sena will now go out to seek re-election for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The road ahead for Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray will be tough, as he will have to keep the morale of the cadre up in the Lok Sabha and the state Assembly elections.

The two parties announced the alliance on Monday after Thackeray and BJP national president Amit Shah ironed out the pact and resolved key issues in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. The decision comes after the Sena passed a resolution to contest all upcoming elections without an alliance with the BJP.

During the negotiations, Thackeray, who leveraged on the recent poor poll performance of the BJP, successfully managed to squeeze out more seats for the Lok Sabha, including a seat that is now held by the BJP. In the Assembly, too, he managed to secure a 50-50 seat-sharing formula, despite having only 63 members in the 288-member Assembly. “Convincing the cadre to work with the BJP will be a herculean task for Uddhav. How will party cadre campaign for Mumbai North-East seat, which is held by BJP’s Kirit Somaiya, who had said the Mumbai civic body is run by mafias from Bandra,” said Prakash Bal, political analyst.

Bal said the Sena could lose a chunk of its traditional Marathi votes to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which could enter the grand alliance with the help of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Senior Sena leaders and party functionaries acknowledge that the decision could adversely affect the mood within the party grassroots. Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said, “We will see now; we will start work on it from scratch.”

Raut, who has openly criticised the BJP, it policies and leadership on issues, was not present at the press conference where the alliance was announced.

Party leaders said the BJP’s growth under Amit Shah and Modi over the past five years has made Sena cadre restless.

Meanwhile, party functionaries point out that the decision to come together with the BJP would be beneficial for the success of the party in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. “If we had gone ahead without an alliance with the BJP, our current tally in the Lok Sabha, at least, could reduce considerably,” said a party functionary.

Surendra Jondhale, a political analyst, said the Sena leadership has “smartly” addressed all issues where it has criticised the BJP. “He got assurances from the BJP on key points, including Ayodhya, Nanar refinery, farm distress, etc. It would have been very tough for the Sena to be successful independently. The Sena retained its political manoeuvring of the last five years by getting more seats,” Jondhale said. “Thackeray needed the alliance to get the tag of Maharashtra’s most significant party.”

A senior party leader said, “This is an alliance not a merger. If there are issues, we will take them up… There is a plan to go to drought-affected areas with the BJP.”

First Published: Feb 19, 2019 00:27 IST