The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday asked Maharashtra ally Shiv Sena to not criticise it in public, but to air its grievances during internal and state Cabinet meetings, PTI reported. Senior BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “There is no reason to bring it up on the public forum.”

Calling the party the BJP's “oldest ally at the state and national level”, Mungantiwar added that public speeches and statements do not influence the fate of an alliance. “Does a failure to ally once make us enemies?” he said, in an apparent reference to both parties contesting the 2014 Assembly elections in Maharashtra by themselves. The BJP also said it wants to contest next year's civic polls in Mumbai in alliance with the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.

The Sena has criticised its alliance partner on several issues. In April, party mouthpiece Saamna said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “roaming the world as a mascot of peace” even as the violence across the country was growing. “This is not the indication of an able ruler,” the editorial in the publication had said. In August, the party had urged the BJP to consider its allies for governors’ posts. It had said all governors appointed by the Modi-led government had been members of the BJP.