Sena MPs said written assurance was needed since the said pact was not honoured by the BJP, which contested the larger chunk of 288 seats in the Assembly polls held on October 21, leaving Sena with just 124 seats to fight.
The 56 newly-elected party MLAs met Uddhav Thackeray at his Matoshree residence in Mumbai on Saturday and insisted on a written assurance from the BJP to honour a deal – to equally share power in Maharashtra– allegedly struck between alliance partners before the national general polls in May this year.
Sena MPs said written assurance was needed since the said pact was not honoured by the BJP, which contested the larger chunk of 288 seats in the Assembly polls held on October 21, leaving Sena with just 124 seats to fight.
Party MLA Pratap Sarnaik from Ovala-Majiwada in Thane, who was in the meeting, said the government formation process would not start unless the BJP gave a written assurance to share the CM post equally.
“All the legislators have decided to give all the powers to make decision to Uddhav ji. It was decided that the central leadership of the BJP should honour the pact of 50:50 power sharing agreement, including the split of CM post. We want it in writing from the BJP,” Sarnaik said.
Guhagar MLA Bhaskar Jadhav added that while they want sharing of the chief minister’s post, party’s candidate for the top position had not been decided yet.
The Sena won 56 seats out of the 124 it contested, while the BJP won 105 out of the 164 seats it fought.
Some party MLAs, according to news agency PTI, said they wanted to see Uddhav’s son Aaditya Thackeray become the chief minister.
“We want to see Aaditya Thackeray as the next chief minister. But Uddhavji will take the final decision,” PTI quoted Pratap Sarnaik as saying.
Aaditya is the first from the Thackeray family to contest and win an election and was widely seen as a possible candidate for the deputy CM’s position before the polls.
A Maharashtra congress leader added a new dimension to the post-poll political developments on Saturday by suggesting that the party high command could consider Shiv Sena’s claim to the CM post if approached.
“We have been given the role of opposition and we will do that. But, if any alternative is to be discussed, then Shiv Sena has to come to us and they have not approached us yet,” Vijay Wadettiwar told news agencies.
The Maharashtra BJP has convened a meeting of its newly-elected MLAs on October 30 to elect the leader of the House, said PTI, quoting state unit chief Chandrakant Patil on Saturday.
Prasanta Patnaik