Congress, NCP yet to take final call on support to Sena

On the day of hectic developments when President's rule was imposed in Maharashtra, the top brass of Congress and NCP in Mumbai but remained non-committal on any support to Shiv Sena.

After the first round of joint talks, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's top aide Ahmed Patel and NCP founder-president Sharad Pawar maintained that the two MahaAghadi parties must need to discuss the modalities of alliance with Shiv Sena first and then initiate formal talks with them on government formation.

They said Shiv Sena, which had contested the elections in alliance with the BJP as part of MahaYuti alliance, approached the Congress-NCP officially only on Monday, seeking support to form the next government.

Echoing the same thing, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray after meeting party's legislators, said that definitely there are issues that need to be worked out. "What they said is true and I stand vindicated as BJP has said that I had approached them from the time results were declared," he said.

Meanwhile, BJP's legislature party leader Devendra Fadnavis said that the imposition of President's rule was "unfortunate" and stressed on the need to have a stable government even as Uddhav's bete noire Narayan Rane has been asked to muster the magic figure of 145.

Patel and AICC general secretaries Mallikarjun Kharge and KC Venugopal airdashed to Mumbai and met Pawar and his lieutenant Praful Patel to discuss the road map ahead. State-level leaders of both the parties were present at the meeting held at the YB Chavan Centre at Nariman Point to thrash out issues.

However, a formal agreement could not be worked out between the two parties but in principle, they have not initiated discussions.

"We will discuss and evolve a consensus on what should be the policies and programs if the Shiv Sena was to be supported," Pawar said.

"We (Congress and NCP leaders) discussed the nitty-gritty of a (possible) common minimum programme to ensure the government functions smoothly," he said.

Patel agreed and admitted that there were issues related to ideology and hence the deliberations would take time. "We cannot rush through," he added.

“First the BJP was invited, then Shiv Sena and later NCP, but the Congress was not even invited by Governor to explore government formation. This is wrong,” Patel added.