A meeting of senior Shiv Sena leaders on Tuesday passed a resolution that the party won't align with the BJP in the next parliamentary and Maharashtra Assembly elections, which are scheduled to be held next year.
The resolution, at the Shiv Sena's national executive meet, said the party would contest the elections on its own in Maharashtra. The BJP and Shiv Sena have been at loggerheads since before the 2014 elections when the BJP's popularity started exceeding that of the hardline Maratha party; the Shiv Sena has been a bitter critic of many policy decisions of the Modi government.
The party is likely to announce that it will put up candidates in the coming state polls in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
However, it is unclear whether the Shiv Sena's latest resolution means an imminent breakup of the existing coalition government in Maharashtra, as the Shiv Sena has few levers of influence.
Furthermore, the possibility of the two saffron parties working together remains given that the Shiv Sena had tied up with the BJP to form the current coalition government in late 2014 after the declaration of results.
