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POLITICS

on the next Speaker for the newly-elected State Assembly in assembly, a sufficient number to form the next government.
coming days, way would have been perhaps paved for the Nevertheless, Shiv Sena’s insistence on equal-sharing of the
installation of the coalition government headed by Uddhav chief ministerial tenure and BJP’s reluctance to accede to
Thackeray culminating in the lifting of President’s Rule in Sena’s this demand resulted on acrimony and impasse in
the state along with ending over the month-long political government formation, despite protracted negotiations.
logjam in the state that had been in vogue after the results of With the BJP having won 105 seats and its emergence as a
assembly elections were declared. single largest party, it was not in a position to form the gov-
Coming together of ideologically poles apart parties like ernment of its own and support of Shiv Sena that had won
Shive Sena, which had been an ally of the BJP for about three 56 seats was essential for the BJP in government formation.
decades, with NCP and Congress, which have been long- Sensing its ‘numerical indispensability’ in the formation
time allies, is a curious development for many political pun- of next government, Sena took the bold decision of exact-
dits. Growing disenchantment between Shiv Sena and the ing chief ministerial post from the BJP, contending that a
BJP, which had jointly contested state Assembly polls and 50-50 formula for power sharing, mutually agreed between
together won comfortable majority to form the next govern- the partners, must hold under the prevalent circumstances.
ment, over the issue of equal sharing of the chief ministe- However, insistence of the BJP that its incumbent would be
rial tenure, spurred Shiv Sena to look for other options that the chief minister for full tenure or nobody led to parting
finally culminated in the formation of alliance between Shiv of ways between Sena and the BJP, thereby, putting a full-
Sena, NCP and Congress. stop to three-decade old partnership between Sena and the
BJP that had commenced in 1990. Politics in Maharashtra
BJP-SHIV SENA SPLIT from 1990 onwards witnessed Sena-BJP combination fight-
Interestingly, Shiv Sena and BJP had contested the state As- ing assembly and Lok Sabha elections together to emerge
sembly polls in Maharashtra held in October 2019 as alli- as a strong Opposition to the then ruling Congress on the
ance partners and jointly cobbled up 161 seats in 288-seat plank of political Hindutva. For about two-and-a- half dec-

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