PTI

Mumbai, May 6: Paying tributes to late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, who was considered the architect of the BJP’s alliance with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, the Sena on Friday said it would strive hard to continue the tie up.

"We will strive hard to maintain the ties between the Sena and BJP, which we have held so far due to an ideology," Shiv Sena said, in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamna.

The newspaper is edited by party supremo Bal Thackeray. "No other leader would be able to occupy his (Mahajan) place in our heart," it said. "Only time would tell who takes the place of this lakshman of BJP in that party in the state and the country," the editorial said.

"Vajpayee may have called him Lakshman, but for us, he was the Hanuman, who thwarted all dangers," it said.

"The fame that Mahajan got during his lifetime, he got several times more fame after his death. We are not hungry for power. Till the time BJP does not discard the Hindutva agenda to a corner, we will remain with them as a Hindutva friend," the paper added.