Last week former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari met Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray at a five-star hotel in central Mumbai. Though media dubbed the meeting a secret one, president of BJP's Mumbai unit Ashish Shelar immediately tweeted about the meeting.
Gadkari not only gave bytes to national television news channels but also granted interviews to a few Marathi news channels as well.
Gadkari told media that during the 2009 elections, BJP-Shiv Sena lost many seats as MNS ate into their vote bank. "I had met Raj to request him that since MNS has no real national-level ambition, it should not field candidates for Lok Sabha elections and spoil chances of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi," he told the media.
On the face of it, no one can fault with Gadkari's argument. During 2009 elections, out of 48 seats in the state, MNS contested 12 seats in the urban belt of Mumbai, Thane, Nashik and Pune. Out of the 12, at 10 places MNS candidates polled more than 100,000 votes. At two Lok Sabha constituencies, its candidates stood at the second place, relegating BJP-Sena candidates to the third place. The margin of victory of Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidates in almost all constituencies was almost equal of votes polled by MNS.

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