New Delhi: India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ditched its two regional allies at the behest of its parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

BJP snapped its ties with the Haryana Janhit Congress in Haryana and broke its 25-year-old ties with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. The two states are scheduled to vote to elect their new state legislative assemblies on October 15.

Overriding ambition to spread its wings across the country, fuelled by the BJP’s massive victory in the summer general elections, has resulted in the BJP reviewing its ties with regional allies and dumping them at the first available opportunity.

RSS wants BJP to take a risk and contest the state polls alone to prepare BJP for the 2019 general elections. BJP may have in the process dented its chances of coming to power in both Maharashtra and Haryana.

According to sources in the BJP, while the party saw Haryana Janhit Congress as a burden in the northern state Haryana, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat forced BJP to walk out of the two and a half decade old alliance with the Shiv Sena as playing junior partner to the Shiv Sena was seen as an impediment to BJP’s growth in the western state.

“RSS wants [federal minister] Nitin Gadkari to take over as the next Maharashtra chief minister,” sources said.

RSS has of late been taking keen interest in BJP’s affairs. Its first direct interference started with forcing the party to name then little-known Nitin Gadkari as the BJP president in 2010. When Gadkari had to quit last year after his name got embroiled in a corruption case, RSS named Rajnath Singh as his successor.

RSS then had to use all its might to get its choice Narendra Modi as BJP prime ministerial candidate in view of stiff opposition from senior leader Lal Krishna Advani and the faction owing allegiance to him.

“Though we are not going to name our chief ministerial candidates for Maharashtra and Haryana, it is by and large clear that if we are in a position to form the government on our own or take help of any other party, Gadkari would head the new government,” the BJP leader said.

Polls in Maharashtra and Haryana are to be followed by elections in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir towards the end of this year. BJP has already announced that it would go to the polls in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir on its own.