The Shiv Sena that believes it is only days away from leading a three-party coalition government in Maharashtra intends to fly out its lawmakers to Congress-ruled Rajasthan after their meeting with Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, people familiar with the development said.
The party had yesterday sent out a message to its MLAs to come for the meeting on Friday with a change of clothes and identity documents such as Aadhaar card.
The NCP, Congress and Sena leadership are expected to meet in Mumbai on Friday or Saturday to give a final shape to the alliance including the power-sharing formula between the three parties.
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The Sena leadership is of the opinion that the MLAs should be kept together at a safe location till the new alliance stakes claim to form the government, a Sena functionary said.
The Sena had also debated sending the legislators to neighbouring Goa or Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh but eventually settled for Rajasthan. The Congress party had earlier put up its 44 MLAs at a luxury resort in Jaipur.
“The location is still being finalised. The MLAs will be sent to either Jaipur or Udaipur in Rajasthan till the process here is completed,” a senior Shiv Sena leader confirmed. Senior party MLAs including Eknath Shinde and Thackeray scion Aaditya, who is a legislator from Worli, would stay back in Mumbai.
Abdul Sattar, Sena MLA from Sillod, said the leadership had not indicated the details of the arrangement so far.
{{/usCountry}}Abdul Sattar, Sena MLA from Sillod, said the leadership had not indicated the details of the arrangement so far.
{{/usCountry}}“The party has asked the MLAs to come prepared with IDs etc. We have a meeting with Uddhav ji on Friday. After that we will come to know if we will stay in Mumbai or someplace else.”
The Sena had earlier this month moved its lawmakers to a hotel in Bandra and later at a beachfront resort at Madh in Malad for a few days when it was negotiating with the Bharatiya Janata Party, its alliance partner in the state elections. But the Sena walked out of the partnership after the BJP refused to share the chief minister’s post with it.