Short of a majority for the first time since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, the BJP got strong assurances of support from its allies at an NDA meeting on Friday. Backing a proposal to make Mr Modi the Prime Minister again, Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra chief minister and head of the fourth-largest party in the NDA this time, said the Shiv Sena's bond with the party was a strong one and would not break easily.
The Shiv Sena chief used a line from a popular advertisement and said, "Yeh Fevicol ka jod hai, tootega nahin (this is a Fevicol bond, it's not going to break)".
For the uninitiated, Fevicol is one of India's leading adhesive brands and ran a series of popular advertisements on its strong adhesion properties. One of the ads showed two pieces of wood stuck with Fevicol getting the better of a few people and even an elephant tugging at them.
Addressing the NDA meeting after senior BJP leaders and some alliance members extended their support to PM Modi, Mr Shinde said in Hindi, "Today is a historic and golden day. (Senior BJP leader) Rajnath Singh has proposed making Prime Minister Narendra Modi the head of the NDA parliamentary party and, as a party that follows (Shiv Sena founder) Bal Thackeray's ideals, we support this fully."
"In the past 10 years, PM Modi has contributed to the development of this country and ensured that India's stature has risen globally. The economy has also been strengthened. No matter how many rumours or false narratives the opposition spreads, they have been rejected by the people and PM Modi has been accepted... What I will say about the Shiv Sena is that the party and the BJP share a common ideology and the alliance, which was formed by Bal Thackeray, is a Fevicol bond and will not break," he added.
The Shiv Sena and the BJP had joined hands for the first time in 1984 and have a shared ideology in Hindutva. The two parties had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections together, but fell out following a disagreement over the chief minister's post. Party chief Uddhav Thackeray joined hands with the Congress and the NCP and became the chief minister.
Alleging that Mr Thackeray had violated the mandate given to the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance and gone against Bal Thackeray's ideals, Mr Shinde staged a rebellion in 2022 and walked over with the bulk of the party's MLAs to the NDA. He was sworn in as the chief minister with the BJP opting to take the deputy chief minister's post despite having a much higher strength in the legislature.
The Shiv Sena chief's statement is also important because he has seven MPs in the new Lok Sabha, behind only the BJP (240), TDP (16) and the JDU (12) in the NDA. With the BJP 32 short of the majority mark, all of these parties will be crucial in ensuring that the NDA completes its full term.
