Former BJP leader Eknath Khadse has refuted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim that the Shiv Sena broke the alliance, and not the national party, ahead of the Assembly polls in 2014. Khadse said in Mumbai on Wednesday that it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that severed ties with the Sena because the party leaders —the high command and state leadership—strongly felt the BJP was in a position to form the government on its own.

Khadse, the then Opposition leader in the Assembly, was asked to make an announcement on behalf of the party. “What PM Modi said yesterday at the NDA MPs’ meeting is not true. The BJP broke the alliance with the Shiv Sena in 2014, it was not the other way, as has been said by the PM,” he told a media conference. “For all these years I have been blamed for breaking the alliance. In fact, I just made an announcement as directed by the party,” added the leader, who had quit as minister from the Devendra Fadnavis cabinet and later joined the NCP.