Maha Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis meets Raj Thackeray

Mumbai, July 15: Amid speculations of MNS possibly extending support to the BJP in the forthcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday met Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray.

The meeting, which took place at 'Shivtirtha', Thackeray's residence at Dadar in central Mumbai. It assumes significance in view of the upcoming elections to the BMC and the pending expansion of the Maharashtra cabinet led by Eknath Shinde.

The polls will be held on August 18 in Pune, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Nashik, Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed, Osmanabad, Latur, Amravati and Buldhana districts. The results will be announced the next day.

There are speculations that Thackeray's son Amit Thackeray might get a cabinet berth in the BJP-Shiv Sena government.

The MNS chief had last month undergone a hip replacement surgery at the Lilavati Hospital.

It may be recalled that Thackeray had written an open letter to Fadnavis, praising him for setting an example of party loyalty and commitment by taking over as deputy chief minister of the state despite being the frontrunner for the top post.

Shinde, who rebelled against the Shiv Sena leadership along with majority of party MLAs, took oath as the Chief Minister on June 30, while Fadnavis was sworn in as his deputy.

The MNS, which has one MLA, had backed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last month's elections to the Rajya Sabha as well as state Legislative Council seats. The win of the BJP in these crucial polls, which saw its candidates getting more votes than it has, had come just before the rebellion in the Shiv Sena that led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led government.