Monday, April 18 2005 18:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: After nearly 23 years, NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray will share the dais when a photo-biography on Thackeray's life will be released in Mumbai on May 11.

The pictorial book has not been named autobiography since the Shiv Sena chief has vowed not to publish one, nephew of Bal Thackeray and Shiv Sena leader, Raj Thackeray, said today (Apr 18, 2005).

Raj, who has published the book, said Thackeray's friends Sharad Pawar and NDA (National Democratic Alliance) convenor George Fernandes will share the dais, while former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will release the book.

Filmstar Amitabh Bachchan, singer Lata Mangeshkar, and BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan will be other guests at the function, Thackeray said.

Thackeray said the invitation to the NCP chief should not be coloured by political overtones because Pawar and the senior Thackeray were old friends.

Similarly, the friendship of the Sena chief with NDA convenor, George Fernandes dates back to the days when the Sena chief was working as a cartoonist in a south Mumbai-based English daily and Fernandes was leading the workers' union there, he said.

He, however, said that Pawar and the senior Thackeray would share a dais after several years.

"The last time they shared a dais was in 1982, and after that, the only time Pawar and the Sena chief were seen together were when the elder Thackeray's wife Meenatai, passed away," Raj said.