It looked like the Shiv Sena has agreed to NCP’s demand for walking out of the NDA alliance at the Centre.
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant on Monday resigned as Union Minister amid tussle with BJP.
“BJP has taken a lot of strides in Maharashtra in the pursuit of falsehood .. Shiv Sena’s side is the truth. Why stay in Delhi government in such a false environment? And that is why I am resigning as the Union Minister,” Sawant tweeted.
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has invited the second-largest party, the Shiv Sena to indicate willingness to form the government after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bowed out.
The saffron party made the announcement on Sunday evening after two rounds of meeting of the party’s core committee.
BJP state president Chandrakant Patil told reporters: “The mandate of the people was for the Shiv Sena-BJP combine. We cannot form the government on our own”.
The BJP blamed the Sena for insulting the public’s mandate and wished it best to form a government with the support of Congress and NCP.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut had told reporters, “Maharashtra will have Sena’s chief minister.”
The political crisis in the state intensified after the BJP conceded its inability to form the government in Maharashtra despite having the mandate for its pre-poll alliance with Shiv Sena.
BJP and Shiv Sena failed to resolve the deadlock over 50-50 power-sharing formula as part of which Sena wanted its candidate to be the chief minister for at least two and half years.
Neither Shiv Sena nor the BJP has the required numbers to form the government. The Sena won 56, the BJP has 105 seats. The Congress won 44 and its ally NCP has 54 seats in the 288-member Maharashtra assembly.
