Sena anxious as Cong-NCP defer Maharashtra talks

Shiv Sena leaders watched with anxiety as Congress and NCP continued to jostle over the government formation exercise in Maharashtra, by deferring a crucial meeting to thrash out modalities of the grand alliance.

A section of the Shiv Sena leadership was left aghast as NCP supremo Sharad Pawar declared on Monday that the government formation in Maharashtra did not figure in his 45-minute talks with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

After the meeting, both Congress and NCP had called for wider consultations with minor allies such as Swabhimani Paksha, Peasants and Workers Party of India and factions of the RPI, a move seen by Sena leaders as part of a “power game” by Pawar.

“Congress leaders are all ready to join the government. It is Pawar who has been delaying matters,” a senior Shiv Sena leader told DH here.

Leaders of the Congress and the NCP were to meet in the national capital on Tuesday to discuss the post-election scenario in Maharashtra, but the deliberations were put off by a day as Congress leaders were busy with the birth centenary celebrations of late prime minister Indira Gandhi.

In Mumbai, Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray summoned a meeting of party MLAs on Friday amid reports that the Sena may revive its alliance with the BJP if it agreed to share the chief minister's post with it.

Senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, however, dismissed speculation over the crumbling of the storied Sena-NCP-Congress alliance. “You don't worry about our alliance. A Shiv Sena-led government will be in place next month,” he told reporters here.

Political circles in Delhi were abuzz about BJP leaders wooing the NCP to support its government to keep Sena away from power in Maharashtra. Pawar has repeatedly made it clear that it will not forge an alliance with the BJP.

Meanwhile, Congress President Sonia Gandhi met senior leaders A K Antony, Mallikarjun Kharge, K C Venugopal here to deliberate on the political situation in Maharashtra. Congress sources said a meeting with NCP leaders will be held on Wednesday.

In the recent Maharashtra assembly elections, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had secured a comfortable majority by winning 105 and 56 seats respectively. However, the two parties had a bitter parting of ways after Sena accused the BJP of reneging on its promise of sharing the chief minister's post with it for two-and-a-half years.