In Shiv Sena’s new formula for Maharashtra, ‘important’ role for Sharad Pawar

BJP and Sena have been bickering over the last two weeks over a power-sharing formula that involves sharing the chief minister’s post.

The Shiv Sena on Sunday said that the party’s chief, Uddhav Thackeray, will decide on the next Maharashtra chief minister and that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar will play an “important role” in the process.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. Sena said its chief Uddhav Thackeray will decide on the next chief minister of Maharashtra and with NCP president Sharad Pawar will play an important role. (Pratik Chorge/HT FILE Photo)

“[Devendra] Fadnavis’s biggest failure is that the Sena is not ready to talk to him. This means that Uddhav Thackeray will decide who will become the next chief minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar will play an important role in this process,” Sena leader Sanjay Raut said in a column in the party’s mouthpiece, Saamana. “There is overall consensus in Maharashtra that there should not be a chief minister from BJP,” he said.

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Raut’s column was published a day after Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari asked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which emerged as the single-largest party after last month’s assembly elections in the state, to “indicate willingness and ability” to form the government.

The BJP and the Sena have been involved in an impasse over the government formation in the state since the election results were declared on August 24. The Sena has insisted on rotating the chief minister’s post saying that the two parties agreed to it before the April-May national elections as part of a “50-50” power-sharing agreement. Devendra Fadnavis has maintained that no “50-50 formula” had been agreed to. He resigned as the Maharashtra chief minister on Friday amid a war of words between the BJP and the Shiv Sena before the term of the last assembly ended without a new government in place on Friday.

In his column, Raut underlined that “Maharashtra will decide its chief minister and Delhi should not intervene”.