Advertisement will not be able to weaken Sena-BJP alliance: Eknath Shinde

An advertisement will not be able to weaken the Bharatiya Janata Party- Shiv Sena alliance, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said and asserted that the bitterness someone was trying to create over the last one year had been removed.

A war of words erupted between the Shiv Sena and the BJP over a newspaper advertisement that projected Shinde as being more popular in the state than his deputy Fadnavis.

The full-page advertisement, which also had a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appeared in major newspapers in the state on Tuesday, citing a survey that showed Shinde was ahead of Fadnavis in popularity.

Shinde said, This alliance will not get weakened just because of an advertisement put out by an over-enthusiastic party worker. The alliance was formed from a deep ideological stand when stalwarts like Shiv Sena founder late Bal Thackeray and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee were around, he added.

In the past one year, someone tried to add salt (bitterness, acrimony) in the (Sena-BJP) alliance but that (issue) has been taken out like a stone. There will no enmity just because of an advertisement, he reiterated.