NAGPUR, Maharashtra: The political stalemate in Maharashtra ended on Monday as Congress president Sonia Gandhi decided to extend support to Shiv Sena, which will now form the state government with the support of NCP and Congress.
Shiv Sena was given time till 7.30 pm on Monday to show its willingness to form the government by Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari. On Sunday, the BJP, which had emerged as the single largest party after the assembly election last month, had expressed its inability to form the government.
The NCP and Congress have faxed their letters of support to the governor’s house, where Uddhav Thackeray’s son and newly elected MLA Aaditya have reached along with other senior Shiv Sena leaders, to stake the claim for government formation.
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The day witnessed hectic political activities in New Delhi and in Maharashtra as Uddhav called on NCP chief Sharad Pawar and reportedly asked for his support for government formation.
Thackeray also deputed his personal assistant Milind Narvekar and MP Anil Desai to New Delhi, where they met senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel and also spoke with Sonia Gandhi on phone.
On Sunday, NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik had asked Shiv Sena to quit NDA if it wanted NCP’s support. As per NCP’s wish, Shiv Sena’s sole minister in Narendra Modi cabinet, Arvind Sawant, resigned on Monday and the party ended its decades-old alliance with the BJP.
The Congress president’s decision came after she spoke to all senior Congress leaders and newly elected Congress MLAs, who have been shifted to Congress-ruled Rajasthan to avoid poaching by the BJP.
Shiv Sena, which managed to win 56 seats in the assembly election, struck a hard bargain with its pre-poll alliance partner BJP and remained adamant on sharing the chief minister’s post, a demand declined by the BJP. Finally, the BJP preferred to stay in opposition.
The Congress was divided along the lines of seniority over supporting Shiv Sena. Senior leaders like Sushil Kumar Shinde and Sanjay Nirupam had advised the grand old party against any such misadventures whereas Milind Deora, Prithviraj Chavan and some others were in favour of keeping the BJP out of power.
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Pawar and state Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat had been reiterating since the day of election results that the mandate for Congress and NCP was to sit in the opposition.
With Congress’s support now Shiv Sena will form the government with the support of 154 MLAs in the 288-member house. The BJP had won 105 seats, Shiv Sena 56 seats, whereas NCP and Congress had won 54 and 44 seats respectively in the assembly election held last month.
According to some NCP sources, Pawar had no problem in backing Shiv Sena but he could not have been seen backing a radical Hindutva outfit like Shiv Sena alone, which is why he was waiting for the Congress to make the first move.
Congress’s move suggests that it is not averse to aligning with Shiv Sena, which has a radical Hindutva image and the background of being involved in Babri Masjid demolition and 1993 communal riots in Mumbai.
Uddhav and his father Bal Thackeray had gone to the extent of calling Congress prime minister Manmohan Singh as “politically impotent” in the past.
The Congress president’s decision came after day-long discussions with top Congress leaders including her daughter and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The decision of the grand old party shows BJP’s all-out attack on any kind of opposition has forced even fiercest allies to align with each other.