Thaindian News

Mumbai, June 22 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) senior leader Gopinath Munde’s plan to leave his party would not affect the alliance of Shiv Sena-BJP-Republican Party of India in Maharashtra, Sena chief Bal Thackeray said here Wednesday, ahead of Munde’s announcement to remain in his party.

“All rumours that I am leaving the BJP to join the Congress are only false…I have always been with the BJP and will remain with the party,” Munde said in New Delhi after meeting party leader Sushma Swaraj.

Reacting to reports in the past few weeks that Munde was planning to quit the BJP as he was feeling sidelined, Thackeray sought to know how come Munde realised this so late.

“How come he realised so late that he was being humiliated in the BJP?” Thackeray asked, talking to reporters at his residence.

Thackeray said this was the “internal” matter of the BJP and he would not like to interfere in it in any manner.

He brushed aside a question whether he would speak to BJP leaders, including party chief Nitin Gadkari and L.K. Advani, about Munde’s grievances.

“Where is the need? I do not feel the need to speak to any leader on this issue,” he said.

Thackeray expressed his readiness to entertain Munde if he wanted to speak to the Sena supremo about his grievances.

“The doors of ‘Matoshri’ (Thackeray family’s residence in north Mumbai’s Bandra) are always open for him. When he had differences in the past with the BJP leadership, I had spoken to him and stopped him. But now I will not stop him (from leaving the BJP),” the Sena chief said.