Saturday, June 18 2005 22:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today (Jun 18, 2005) sought to play down the Shiv Sena threat to review ties with it in the wake of recent controversy over L K Advani's remarks on Pakistan founder M A Jinnah and insisted the ties between the two will continue.

"BJP and Shiv Sena alliance is the oldest in Maharashtra and it will continue for long," party spokesman Prakash Javadekar told reporters in New Delhi.

"He (Thackeray) has put forward his opinion like many others. He has not talked of severing ties (with BJP). It will be wrong to interpret (it) in that way," he said reacting to Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's interview to the party's mouthpiece 'Samna' in which he had threatened to review ties with BJP.

"We share a friendship with BJP on the issue of Hindutva. Though there still are hardcore people in the BJP, going by their recent shenanigans we hope a time does not arise when unfortunately we have to say there 'was' a friendship between Sena and BJP," Thackeray said in the interview.