On a day when BJP president Amit Shah left open the alliance issue, party patriarch L K Advani pitched for a tie-up with the estranged ally Shiv Sena to meet the shortfall of 23 seats to form the government in Maharashtra again after 1995.

He even showed willingness to mediate between the BJP and the Sena for a patch up. Advani, however, was against having any support from the NCP which, with 41 MLAs, voluntarily offered unconditional support to the BJP. In this scenario, the BJP is not bound to go back to the Sena.

Of the 288-member seats, the BJP won 122 while the Sena came second, with 63. To cross the halfway mark, the BJP  needs 23 seats. “I hope that in an important state like Maharashtra, the alliance is restored. It will be good if the old relationship between the BJP and Sena is revived. I had said earlier too that this relationship should not have broken up,” Advani told reporters at Amritsar airport.

Advani was not happy over the BJP and Sena parting ways. BJP fought the polls with other smaller parties, including RPI (Athawale), of the grand alliance. “I would like to see that a government is formed and I wish it happens with BJP and Shiv Sena. I am happy with the results,” he said. Advani, who has been sidelined in the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah regime given his reservation over Modi’s projection as the PM candidate during the polls, stressed that the results indicate that “the mood witnessed in Lok Sabha elections has continued even in the Assembly polls.”

Perhaps for the first time in his political career, Advani, now merely a member of advisory “Margdarshak Mandal”,  was not even invited to address a single political rally in the two states of Maharashtra and Haryana. Even on Sunday, Advani had left his house early morning to attend a religious congregation of Dera Radha Soami Sect in Amritsar but returned back to the national capital in the afternoon.

Party sources said that by opposing any truck with the NCP, Advani suggested that any alliance with a Congress partner would send a wrong signal since the party fought the polls against corrupt and inefficient coalition government that was in power for 15 years. Advani was overjoyed on the party’s clean sweep in Haryana, giving a chance to the party for the first time to form government and that too alone.