Virtually turning down the Shiv Sena's offer to join hands with it, the Ramdas Athavale-led Republican Party of India on Sunday said, "It can rethink about forging an RPI-Sena alliance only if the Saffron party sheds its Hindutva agenda."
"It will not be advisable to join hands with the Sena at this juncture. We can rethink about it only if the Sena adopts secularism," RPI president and MP Ramdas Athavale told reporters after a marathon meeting of the party's state-executive in Mumbai.
"Our workers are not happy as depite our alliance with the NCP, they have benefitted little from the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra. However, merely joining hands with Sena for the sake of power will be against the principles of the Ambedkariite movement," he said.
The NCP is one of the major partners in the DF government.
The Sena's newly elected executive president Uddhav Thackeray had suggested the alliance.