A viral video showed the two leaders standing together and having a brief conversation.
When asked about the conversation, Thackeray said, “People must have thought of the song, ‘na na karte pyar tumhi se kar baithe’ (I fell in love with you despite denials). But no such thing will happen.”
Thackeray, on a lighter note, added that lifts don’t have ears so it is a good suggestion to have such meetings in lifts in future.
Though the former BJP ally stated that nothing else was to be inferred from the lift encounter as it was an “unexpected meeting”.
BJP legislator Pravin Darekar, who was also in the lift, said, “When the lift doors opened, Fadnavis walked towards the side of the ruling party offices and Uddhav ji walked to the opposition party offices. This means he (Uddhav) has no intention of joining the ruling benches.”
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Shirsat said the meeting between Thackeray and Fadnavis showed there can be political differences but no animosity. Talking to reporters in the Vidhan Bhavan premises, Shirsat, an MLA, said fights can be political but personal ties should not break. “You can understand the meaning of this (meeting) that we don’t have personal fights. Uddhav saheb must have realised that he is being misguided by the ones like Sanjay Raut (Sena UBT MP). There should be differences but no animosity. This is an example of that,” emphasised Shirsat.
Recently, Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde claimed that after assembly election results in 2019, Fadnavis tried to contact Thackeray 50 times to discuss the sharing of the CM’s term for 2.5 years each by the Sena and BJP but Thackeray did not take his calls. CM Shinde said Thackeray told him that he would not go ahead with BJP as he did not trust them anymore.
Of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, the ruling alliance won 17, while the opposition MVA combine of the Congress, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT) bagged 30.