Mumbai: Amid the stand-off over government formation in Maharashtra, senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut meet NCP chief Sharad Pawar in Mumbai on Wednesday.
“This was a courtesy call,” Raut told reporters later.
The BJP and the Shiv Sena are locked in a bitter tussle over sharing of the chief minister’s post and ministerial portfolios in new government in the state.
There has been no headway in government formation after results of the state Assembly polls were declared on October 24 in which the BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena-56, NCP- 54 and Congress-44.
Raut, who is a Rajya Sabha member, earlier said his party was firm on a written assurance from the senior alliance partner over power sharing, including rotation of the chief minister’s post for two-and-a-half years.
He also claimed that there was a “consensus” between the BJP and the Shiv before the Maharashtra Assembly polls on sharing the chief minister’s post.
The NCP on Tuesday said a political alternative can be worked out in the state if the Shiv Sena declared that it had snapped ties with the BJP.
Sources in the NCP said their party wants Arvind Sawant, the lone Shiv Sena minister in the Union government, to resign before going ahead further with the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.
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There are no winners whenever a partnership is broken. If NCP wants SS to give up the union berth, it will also mean problems in BMC. What happens to the Hindutva plank and the the support to Common Civil Code and the Ram Mandir issue. It will be the wisdom of the leaderships to evaluate the losses more than the gains. Supporting SS in the long run for NCP may pose a problem for NCP, given that in many areas they are competing with each other, so the question of how long the arrangement will last remains a question. Besides for SS to form and run a government with support of NCP and Congress will need different skills. Both the supporting parties have been in the governments in the past and decimating SS will always be on their agenda. SS appears to be punching beyond its weight both against BJP as well as the NCP-Congress combine. If the SS goes in for the young CM under the circumstances against an opposition with 105 MLAs the life can be very difficult.
Decline of any party can never be blamed on the opponents, it is the quality of leadership which eventually brings down the party.