Mumbai: In a rare gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up BJP ally and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray to thank him for lending support to NDA candidate Harivansh who won the election to the post of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman on Thursday.
Top sources said the courtesy call lasted a few minutes. The phone call marks the second hint of a thaw in ties after BJP chief Amit Shah met Thackeray at the latter’s residence in June.
Shah had also called up Thackeray on August 7 and sought support for JD(U) leader Harivansh, who defeated UPA nominee BK Hariprasad by 20 votes in Thursday’s election in the Rajya Sabha.
The allies have been at loggerheads on a number of issues, with scathing editorials in Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his economic and foreign policies.
The Sena and the BJP contested the May 28 bypolls to Palghar Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra separately and engaged in a bitter campaign against each other. After facing defeat in the Palghar bypoll at the hands of the BJP, the Shiv Sena labelled its ally as its "biggest political enemy".
The Shiv Sena has already declared that it will go it alone in the 2019 General Elections.
The two parties were allies for over two-and-a-half decades before they severed ties ahead of the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly polls, only to join hands later to form government under the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis in the state.
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