Should the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena workers perceive that the pre-poll alliance between the two parties is bound to happen any day soon? Indications of the top leaders — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis — over the last one week make it seem that unlike 2014, they were heading towards something amicable. "Aamcha tharalay (we have decided)," was a favourite takiya kalaam (leitmotif) Thackeray and Fadnavis used when asked about the fate of the bond that was re-stitched between them ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

What have these leaders decided? Confusion was created when Thackeray and Fadnavis (and BJP) insisted that the CM would be from their respective parties. Two days before sharing the dais with Modi, Thackeray told his workers that the Sena would get the CM's office. The Sena president has been consistent in demanding half of 288 seats that would go to polls in October. Was this just for optics or...?