Mumbai: After the patch-up last week between warring BJP and Shiv Sena, the two parties are likely to meet shortly to work out strategies to jointly contest the state assembly elections, to be held in 2009, including power sharing formula if voted to power. The meeting, which is likely to take place in Mumbai after the Ganapati festival, will also discuss among other things like which party should get chief ministership in the event of the alliance getting majority in the elections, party sources said.

The thinking in the BJP camp is that the party, which gets more number of seats should get the chief ministerial berth for two-and-a-half years of the five year term and the other party may hold the post for the subsequent period. But Shiv Sena is yet to respond to this proposal. However both, the BJP and the Shiv Sena, have agreed that they would sink their differences and jointly contest the elections as they feels it is the only way to recapture power in Maharashtra, sources said.

The Shiv Sena and BJP came to a virtual split after Shiv Sena decided to support UPA candidate Pratibha Patil instead of BJP-led NDA candidate Bhaironsingh Shekhawat on the plea that Patil was from Maharashtra and she should be supported to uphold Marathi pride. Though BJP and Shiv Sena patched up after the Sena executive president Uddhav Thakeray met senior BJP leader L K Advani and BJP president Rajnath Singh in New Delhi, the BJP leaders in the state including Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari feel that the truce could be permanent only when Shiv Sena stops hobnobing with NCP and attacking BJP in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Samana.