Shiv Sena will not attend the NDA meeting ahead of winter session of the Parliament which begins from Monday, said the party leader Sanjay Raut. Raut and Anil Desai, another MP from Shiv Sena in the Rajya Sabha will now sit in the Opposition bench in the upper house. Shiv Sena has three MPs in the Rajya Sabha.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant who resigned as Union Minister after the breakup of alliance, will now sit in the third row instead of first row. Other Shiv Sena MPs will also be allotted new seats soon.
Read: To know Aaditya Thackeray’s ‘potential’, watch YouTube, says Shiv Sena leader Arvind Sawant
The BJP and Shiv Sena alliance broke after the Maharashtra elections results were declared where BJP emerged as single largest party with 105 seats and Shiv Sena came second with 56 seats. Following the results, Shiv Sena said that they will not settle for less than the post of a chief minister. Shiv Sena even talked about 50-50 formula where BJP and Shiv Sena could have the post of the chief minister for 2.5 years each. However, the BJP refused. Since then, the government formation in the state has been in a deadlock. Shiv Sena broke alliance with BJP and is now contemplating forming a government with NCP and Congress alliance.
Yesterday, the meeting between the joint body of the new alliance – Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP with the Governor of Maharashtra, Bhagat Singh Koshyari was reportedly put off supposedly due to the unavailability of the leaders. The meeting which was to take place on Saturday at 4:30 PM will now be rescheduled by the governor. Later today, the NCP leader Sharad Pawar is expected to meet Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi to deliberate upon the new alliance with Shiv Sena.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress and Shiv Sena held discussions and zeroed in on the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for the coalition government. According to the reports, 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.
