Indicating that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal may not be rejoining his former party, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Monday asked his one-time protege to “live happily” in the Sharad Pawar-led outfit.After Bhujbal withdrew an 11-year-old defamation case against the Sena chief last week, there was speculation that the OBC leader, sidelined in the NCP for some time, was veering towards a reconciliation with his old party. Bhujbal, Maharashtra Minister for Public Works, had said he withdrew the case after a letter from Sena leaders who asked him to consider Thackeray’s poor health.“Like I have grown old, you have also not got younger. The hair on your bald pate will not come back and your suffocation within NCP won’t stop,” Thackeray said in an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamna. “Had Bhujbal stayed in the Shiv Sena, he would have become Chief Minister and pests like Naroba (Thackeray’s pet name for former Shiv Sainik Revenue Minister Narayan Rane) would not have come up,” he said.
