By IANS
Nagpur : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit leadership Friday asked its cadres to be prepared to fight the next Maharashtra assembly elections on their own strength.
In a calibrated response to Shiv Sena leader Balasaheb Thackeray's recent remark that his party aimed to win power in the state on its own steam, BJP state unit president Nitin Gadkari said here that "in that event", his party too was potent enough to go it alone.
"I don't think our 22-year old alliance with Shiv Sena will break, but if it does, then we will fight and win the election on our own, projecting senior party leader Gopinath Munde as chief ministerial candidate," Gadkari said in his address at the state unit executive meeting.
The meeting began at the Vasantrao Deshpande hall in the absence of its charismatic leader Pramod Mahajan, who was killed last year by his brother Pravin.
The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, which ruled Maharashtra from 1995 to 1999, controls the municipal corporations of Mumbai, Nagpur, Thane and Nashik besides seven zila parishads (district councils) in the state.
Expressing optimism about Shiv Sena coming round to supporting Vice President Bhairaon Singh Shekhawat in the forthcoming presidential election rather than United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) Pratibha Patil for whom Thackeray has shown a preference, BJP leaders are waiting with baited breath for the other saffron party's final decision due to come on June 25.
A decision in favour of Patil could mean a precursor to the snapping of their ties.