After days of stand-off, Shiv Sena and BJP today struck a conciliatory note following last night's talks between their leaders in Delhi, reviving hopes of a saffron coalition government in Maharashtra.
In an apparent attempt at rapprchement, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had despatched Rajya Sabha MP Anil Desai and party's leader in the outgoing Assembly Subhash Desai to the national capital last night.
"We had gone to Delhi to take forward our talks on forming the next government together. We are ready for an alliance with BJP to form government and talks were positive," Subhash Desai, who briefed Uddhav on the developments earlier in the day, told reporters.
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"We just had informal talks this time and formal discussions will begin from Monday. For now, we have not given any proposal to BJP but have only decided to come together and form a government," he said.
Desai said he had not met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who has been appointed observer for the election of BJP lelgislature party leader.
Though he did not name Sena's BJP interlocutors, sources said they included Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Chandrakant Patil, an MP from Gujarat.
Uddhav is known to have good personal equation with Singh, a former BJP president.
Asked if Uddhav will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Desai said "once the formal talks start, it will be decided whether Uddhavji will go to Delhi to meet the PM or some BJP leaders will come down to Mumbai for discussions with our leader.
