Mumbai : Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday dismissed the speculation that the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would renew their alliance and slammed Opposition legislators for boycotting the last day of the monsoon session of the Assembly in the midst of a pandemic.“There is no possibility of anything happening which did not happen in 30 years,” Thackeray told reporters after the two-day session drew to a close.

The BJP and the Sena have been allies since 1995, but later formed the Maharashtra VikasAghadi (MVA) coalition government in 2019 with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress. Thackeray walked out of the alliance even though the saffron combine won a majority that would have allowed them to form the government after the BJP rejected Sena’s demand to share the CM post over half a tenure each. Recent meetings between leaders of both parties, however, fuelled speculation over a shift in the political equation between the former allies. BJP leader and former CM DevendraFadnavis’s meetings with BJP’s top leadership, especially with Union home minister Amit Shah in Delhi last week, led a section of BJP leaders to speculate on the longevity of the state government. On Sunday, Fadnavis also said that Sena and BJP may have differences of opinion but they were not enemies.

“Ours is a formidable combination and I am sitting between Congress and NCP,” Thackeray said referring to revenue minister BalasahebThorat and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on his left respectively. “There is no question slipping out of this,” Thackeray said.

The CM criticised the BJP legislators’ behavior on Monday which led to the suspension of 12 Opposition leaders, including former ministers AshishShelar, Sanjay Kute, Girish Mahajan, and JaykumarRawal.

They were suspended for a year for misbehaving with the presiding officer BhaskarJadhav during a heated debate on the issue of obtaining caste census data from the Centre. Jadhav said the legislators had hurled abuses at him, and added on Tuesday that he had received threats on social media for his action.

Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil said that the party was considering moving court to challenge the suspension.BJP legislators protested the suspension and boycotted the Assembly on Tuesday. They held a mock session outside the VidhanSabha building prompting security personnel to put an end to the protest. The legislators however continued the mock assembly in the press room. The incident occurred during a debate on the resolution moved by the state government on July 5 to seek empirical data from the Centre in order to restore reservation granted to members of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) which stands to be abolished following a recent Supreme Court order. There is a 27% reservation in local self-government body elections for this category. The BJP opposed the resolution and as the discussions became heated, Opposition legislators approached Jadhav’s seat and tried to snatch the microphone and remove the mace on the table.