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From politics to fashion, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance remains intact. Prasanna D Zore reports
Even as the Shiv Sena continues to bicker with the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership over hobnobbing with its bete noire Raj Thackeray, it all seemed hunky dory when the leading ladies of the two allies met.
When BJP state treasurer Shaina NC and Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray's wife Rashmi came face to face at a fashion event in suburban Mumbai on Friday the camaraderie that is so missing among their party's senior leaders made way for bonhomie.
The two women, bedecked in saris, met warmly, beamed and posed for shutterbugs before taking seats (separate) at designer Gaurang Shah's show.
Shaina NC maintained, “The political partnership, which has lasted almost 25 years, now continues to shine during the forthcoming general and state elections.”
She reiterated that any party or individual was welcome to support BJP's prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi referring to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief, who split away from the Shiv Sena in 2006 to start his own outfit.
Shaina NC said that despite the rumblings between the leaders of their state units, the Shiv Sena and the BJP will fight the forthcoming elections in alliance and expressed her desire to root out the ruling Congress-NCP alliance in the state when elections will be held later in the year.
She, however, said that the party will not distance itself away from the support of Raj Thackeray.
"It is their prerogative," Shaina NC said when asked if the Shiv Sena's grouse against the Nitin Gadkari-Raj Thackeray meeting and the subsequent support of the latter to Modi was justifiable.
Shaina NC said that the BJP taking support of the anti-north Indian “MNS will not dent the party's image in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in their mission of garnering 272+ Lok Sabha seats”.
"Narendra Modi rocks all over India. He will be India's next PM," she emphasised.
Image: Fashion designer and politician Shaina NC and Rashmi Thackeray at the Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai on Friday
Photograph: Prasanna D Zore