The Shiv Sena has made its stand clear on the ongoing power tussle with its NDA ally BJP for the Maharashtra government formation but even two weeks after the Assembly election results were announced, the allies have not been able to agree on the demands they proposed ahead of the polls.
With a huge question mark looming over the chief minister’s post and Shiv Sena haggling for a 50:50 power-sharing formula, senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut claimed that discussions will happen only on proposals that were agreed on before the Assembly elections.
“We will only have discussions on the proposal that we had agreed on before the Assembly polls. No new proposals will be exchanged now. The BJP and the Shiv Sena had an agreement on the post of the CM before elections and only after that did we move ahead for an alliance,” news agency ANI quoted Raut as saying.
Raut said that even the farmers and working-class sections of Maharashtra wanted a Shiv Sena chief minister and have high hopes from the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.
The Sena spokesperson stuck to his word about the CM’s post and said that “there was a consensus on the post before elections” and that there won’t be a new proposal whatsoever.
“Why waste time on new proposals? We want a discussion on what was agreed upon earlier. No new proposal has been received or sent,” Raut said.
Meanwhile, a close aide of Aaditya Thackeray on Wednesday claimed that the Sena scion will take oath as the chief minister at Shivaji Park in Mumbai.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, yesterday said that party’s doors are “always open” for the Shiv Sena.
A Shiv Sena leader had also written a letter to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat seeking his intervention in the feud, barely hours after the RSS accused Shiv Sena of “faking innocence”.