Amidst the ongoing political tussle in Maharashtra, BJP leader and former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has reportedly conducted a private meeting with Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut at a hotel. This is probably the first meeting between the two veteran political leaders after Shiv Sena severed its age-old ties with the BJP and joined hands with Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government in Maharashtra last year.
Earlier, the newspaper had only carried an interview of veteran politico and NCP chief Sharad Pawar. According to reports, the meeting at a top five-star hotel in Mumbai lasted from 1 PM to 3 PM, i.e., about 2 hours. After the meeting, a tweet from Sanjay Raut has also surfaced which is likely to heat up the politics of Maharashtra once again.
Raut, who is noted for his cryptic tweets, posted once again in Hindi, "No matter how beautifully a relationship is fettered, if one doesn't carry respect in their eyes or courtesy on their lips, it ultimately gets severed."
Maharashtra BJP leader Pravin Darekar issued a statement on the meeting between the two leaders and said, "The meeting was held in the context of the upcoming Bihar legislative assembly elections. During the course of the meeting, Sanjay Raut interviewed Fadnavis for the Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' newspaper. However, Fadnavis has said that the interview should remain un-edited and be printed as is."
Pravin said that it would be better if no one tried to dig out any political meanings from this meeting when there are none.
Notably, this will be the second time that an interview of someone other than a member of the Thackeray family will be printed on 'Saamana'.
