Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that the new government in Maharashtra will be in place before next week, reported PTI. “The process to form the government will complete in next 5-6 days and a popular and strong government will be formed in Maharashtra before December,” he said. “The process is going on.”
Raut said everything will be clear by Thursday. “All obstacles that were raised in the last 10-15 days have been cleared,” he said, according to NDTV. “By tomorrow you will know that all obstacles have been cleared. There are certain internal processes of the different parties – Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress – which are currently on.”
Raut, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, also told reporters in New Delhi that the Shiv Sena wants Uddhav Thackeray to become the chief minister – the point that lead to the collapse of ties between the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Shiv Sena had demanded the post of chief minister for 2.5 years, and half the Cabinet berths, demands the BJP has rejected. The BJP had won 105 seats, the Shiv Sena 56 seats, the Nationalist Congress Party 54 seats and the Congress 44 seats, in the elections held on October 21.
President’s Rule was imposed in Maharashtra on November 12, three days after the BJP told Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari that it did not have the numbers to form the government.
On Monday, National Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar met Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi to discuss the possibility of a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance government in the state. However, the meeting failed to break the impasse.
After the meeting, Pawar had said that the Shiv Sena should be asked about government formation in the state. Asked about Pawar’s cryptic answers about government formation, Raut said there was nothing odd about his response. “There is nothing wrong in what Pawar saheb said because the Sena will form the government,” he said. “His stand is right as their mandate is to sit in the Opposition.”
“Some BJP leaders in Mumbai said that it will take 25 births for me to understand Modi,” Raut added. “So, I want to tell everyone that one will need 100 births to understand Sharad Pawar.”
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