New Delhi, Feb. 23: The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance appears to have backtracked a little from its threat to resign en masse from the Maharashtra legislature and force Assembly elections along with the Lok Sabha polls.

BJP sources in the state said the two allies would first take the “battle to the streets” and suss the “public mood” before carrying out the threat.

Sources, however, admitted the chances of simultaneous polls were “remote” because the Election Commission was expected to announce general election dates by the end of this week.

The chief minister would then have to decide within two days whether to dissolve the Assembly or not and go through the motions of convening a cabinet meeting and then recommending the decision to the governor.

This looked “impossible” because the Congress’ ruling coalition partner, the Nationalist Congress Party, was against early Assembly polls, the sources said.

On February 21, the BJP-Sena had decided in Mumbai that its 125 MLAs would quit the Assembly if chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde did not dissolve it immediately.

BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan, who addressed the media, had expressed “shock” that Shinde was undecided because simultaneous polls, he argued, would lessen the burden on an already “depleted” Maharashtra exchequer.

But few in the BJP bought Mahajan’s argument. State party sources candidly spoke of how their alliance’s position in the Lok Sabha polls was “shaky” because of the Congress-NCP tie-up that did not exist in 1999.

The Congress-NCP big-tent alliance includes the Republican Party of India factions, the Janata Dal (Secular), the Peasants and Workers Party and the Left, all of which have pockets of influence of varying degrees.

BJP sources fear that the rivals’ social coalition of Marathas, tribals, Dalits and Muslims is a “formidable” counter to its support base as it could counter the “anti-incumbency” mood.