Dear BJP National Leaders,

Petition Summary: In the long term interests of BJP in Maharashtra, please fight the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections alone, without entering into any sort of electoral alliance with either the Shiv Sena or the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

Detailed Petition:

To begin with, we, the workers, supporters and well wishers of the Bharatiya Janata Party thank you, the national leaders of the party, for the immense hard work and dedication shown by you during the course of the recently concluded 15th Lok Sabha Elections.

We have not received the mandate of the people. Congress party and the UPA, deserve our good wishes, as they begin the huge task set for them by the people. BJP national leadership also deserves praise for accepting the people's verdict with humility and offering to co-operate with the new government. As the supporters of the BJP, we are very happy about this high standard of democratic behavior set by the party.

Now, as we introspect and rebuild the party, there is an immediate task at hand. The elections to the Maharashtra state assembly are only a few months away. While analyzing all the reasons for our defeat and coming up with solutions will take due time, we believe two things stand out. 1. The image of the BJP in the minds of Indian electorate has deteriorated as a party of political extremists. 2. BJP needs to grow outside its bastions.

For the second consecutive Lok Sabha elections, BJP has performed disastrously in the two major metros, Mumbai and Delhi. Its reasonable to conclude that the majority of Mumbaikars, despite going through the enormous twin tragedies of 7/11 and 26/11 under the Congress watch, do not want to vote for BJP. Its hard to believe that this is a reflection of BJP's ability to handle security. The more likely reason is that the average Mumbaikar is inhibited by the very visible image of the Sena-BJP alliance as an extremist outing which resorts to unnecessary violence.

The immense suffering of the North Indian migrants in Mumbai at the hands of MNS and the verbal violence unleashed by Shiv Sena on them makes us feel pathetic. How is that Biharis vote whole heartedly for JD(U)-BJP alliance in Bihar but reject BJP in Mumbai? Besides, this tragedy of North-Indian migrants in Mumbai is only a symptom of the larger hate ideology practiced by the two Sena variants. Yes, the average Marathi manoos is immensely proud of his/her language and culture. But he/she is too good a human being to beat up a poor taxi driver from UP/Bihar who is working hard to give his family, food and some happiness.

The Shiv Sena has been in existence for nearly five decades. In that time people of Maharashtra have trusted it with governing the state only once! The fact that the current disastrous government run by the Congress-NCP combine is being tolerated by the people of the state, points to the serious trust deficit faced by Shiv Sena and to some extent the state BJP leadership.

We have noted that Shiv Sena has won more seats than BJP in the recent elections. However we do not consider this, a justification enough to tolerate Shiv Sena's hate politics and dadagiri. Besides, despite the recent success of the Congress party, we do not believe that the people of this country condone dynastic politics. The two Sena variants headed by members of the Thackeray family do not pass the norms of acceptable democratic behavior.

Considering all these aspects, we believe, its in the best interest of BJP in Maharashtra and more so its citizens, that BJP severs its ties with Shiv Sena and also refrains from having any electoral understanding with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. While severing our alliance with Shiv Sena, we also request the BJP leadership to invite and suitably accommodate those members of the Shiv Sena who are respectable and have worked hand-in-hand with our party workers for several decades.

We believe, contesting the upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra on our own strength will give us the blueprint for rebuilding the party from the grassroots across the country. This method (fine tuned in Maharashtra) can subsequently be deployed in states like Assam and Haryana.

We have immense faith in the BJP National leadership to listen and accommodate the wishes of the party workers and well wishers. We hope you will favorably consider our request to fight the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections on our own strength.

Thank You.