Sena gives up Chimur for BJP

State BJP President Nitin Gadkari has emerged as winner out of the crisis which threatened the 22-year-old BJP-Shiv Sena alliance.

As Gadkari stood his ground, the Sena today blinked and agreed to give up Chimur assembly seat for its ally.

The BJP, on its part, agreed to give up its claim on Kalyan-Dombivali seat in the 2009 Assembly elections.

The truce was reached after senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde held talks with Sena chief Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav at their residence. The date for the bypoll is yet to be announced.

The dispute, which began on Wednesday, showed some signs of a thaw on Thursday, when both parties started talking about not breaking the alliance.

But everything changed on Friday morning after Thackeray's editorial in his party's mouthpiece, Samna, in which he said, "There are no give and takes in friendship and we have shown enough patience so far and we will not succumb to pressure tactics."

Munde's meeting with Thackeray, however, ensured that the two parties remain together, at least for now.