The meeting between the joint body of the new alliance – Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP with the Governor of Maharashtra, Bhagat Singh Koshyari has been put off supposedly due to the unavailability of the leaders. The joint body was supposed to meet the Governor today at 4:30 PM. The Governor is yet to schedule the next appointment for the meeting.
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The leaders of the new alliance had, however, contended that they were slated to meet the Governor to discuss the chronic agrarian distress in the state and not about staking a claim at the government.
Even as the meeting between the leaders of the three parties with Governor stands cancelled, NCP chief Sharad Pawar is all set to meet the Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi on Sunday to deliberate upon the new alliance with Shiv Sena.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress and Shiv Sena yesterday held discussions and zeroed in on the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for the coalition government. According to the sources, Shiv Sena will get a full-term chief minister while Congress and NCP will get to appoint one deputy chief minister each from their ranks. The Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress will get 14, 14, and 12 ministers, respectively. Besides, the coalition will focus on resolving the long-standing issues of agrarian distress and unemployment. Sources also reveal that there are two pending issues yet to be resolved- Shiv Sena’s demand of Bharat Ratna for Veer Savarkar and Congress-NCP’s insistence on having 5 per cent reservations for Muslims.
A report recently suggested that Shiv Sena has even agreed to the 5% reservation for Muslims and for dropping their demands for Veer Savarkar being honoured with the Bharat Ratna.
Earlier in the day, Uddhav Thackeray accused his erstwhile alliance partner BJP of indulging in horse-trading, stating the saffron party’s confidence in forming a government in the state as against the initial inhibitions betrays that the party has been trying to strike a deal with the opposition MLAs under the pretext of President’s rule in the state.
The BJP and Sena fought the Maharashtra Assembly elections in a coalition and secured 105 and 56 seats respectively, a comfortable majority to form government in the state. However, things turned sour between the two allies after BJP refused to cede to Shiv Sena’s demand of having a rotational chief ministerial post. Shiv Sena asserted that the “50-50 formula” was pre-decided before the polls while the BJP has refuted it saying no such discussions were held with the Sena prior to the elections.