BMC polls | 'Tea, not alliance': Fadnavis shuts door on patch-up with Uddhav Thackeray

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis targeted Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday and asserted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will never form an alliance with Uddhav Sena in future. He also took a dig at the Uddhav-led alliance for targeting Tamil Nadu BJP leader K. Annamalai.

Chief Minister Fadnavis told ANI, "We will never need the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) or Uddhav Thackeray in the future; we are winning this election." Fadnavis added, though they are not enemies, "we can have tea with them in the future, but not an alliance."

Fadnavis's comments come after the Thackeray brothers targeted the BJP over 'pseudo' Hindutva and Maratha Manoos. While Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, leaders of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MS), respectively, asserted that not a Hindutva leader but a Marathi would become the mayor of Mumbai, Fadnavis hit back saying "Marathi cannot be separated from Hindutva."

On Mahayuti partners forming different alliances at the local body level, the BJP leader said there is no confusion and infighting in the Mahayuti alliance. "We had decided earlier that there are some cities where we are the dominant party. Therefore, we didn't want to give space to other parties by forming an alliance there. That's why we decided to have a friendly fight," Fadnavis added.

"We had decided earlier that we would not speak against each other or criticise each other. But perhaps due to the pressure of the elections, NCP leader Ajit Pawar criticised us in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. He said many things against us, but we responded with development. We didn't retaliate. We didn't make any accusations against him. We didn't say anything wrong. We responded with development, and you will see that development will win," he claimed.