If BJP not keeping promise, no point continuing alliance: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut
Mumbai: Senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Monday said if the BJP was not willing to fulfill its promise of sharing the chief minister's post in Maharashtra, there was no point in continuing the alliance.
A day after Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari invited the Shiv Sena to stake claim to form government, Raut told reporters here that the BJP "insulted" people's mandate by not abiding to the "50:50" formula which, he claimed, was decided before the Lok Sabha polls.
He also said that when the BJP could tie-up with the People's Democratic Party (PDP) to form government in the then Jammu and Kashmir state, why the Sena could not do the same with the NCP and Congress in Maharashtra.
"The BJP's arrogance that it would sit in the opposition but not share the chief minister's post has led to this situation...if the BJP is not willing to implement its promise, then there is no meaning in stay with the alliance," the Rajya Sabha member said.
He also took a dim view of the governor giving 72 hours to the BJP to stake the claim, but just 24 hours to the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.
Reaching out to the opposition parties, he said the Congress and NCP should bury their internal differences to come up with a 'common minimum programme' in the interest of Maharashtra.
"The Sena, NCP and Congress agree on protecting the interest of Maharashtra," he said.
Hours after the BJP declined to form government in Maharashtra on Sunday, the governor asked the Sena to "indicate its willingness and ability" to stake claim.
The Sena, which is the second-largest party in the 288-member House with 56 MLAs after the BJP (105), has time till 7.30 pm on Monday to stake claim to form government.
While the Sena has been making efforts to reach out to the NCP and the Congress, the Sharad Pawar-led party on Sunday said the Sena will have to walk out of the NDA first.
Sena leader Arvind Sawant, the lone party minister in the Modi Cabinet, on Monday announced his decision to quit the NDA government at the Centre.
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Nitish likely to resign as Bihar CM after last meeting of cabinet on April 14
Patna (PTI): Bihar inched towards a political transition on Sunday with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar convening a meeting of his cabinet on April 14, following which the JD(U) president is likely to relinquish the post to make way for a BJP-led government.
According to a notification issued by the cabinet secretariat department, the meeting will take place at 11 am, after which the longest-serving CM of the state, who got elected to the Rajya Sabha last week, was expected to submit his resignation to Governor Syed Ata Hasnain.
Earlier, Kumar's close aide and JD(U) national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha had told reporters that the process of formation of a new government was likely to "roll out after April 13".
Meanwhile, the BJP, which has been approaching the prospect of having its first- ever chief minister in the state with considerable restraint, got down to business and named Shivraj Singh Chouhan as a "central observer", who would oversee the change of guard.
A statement issued by the BJP headquarters in Delhi said the parliamentary board has appointed Chouhan, a Union minister and a multiple-term former CM of Madhya Pradesh, as “central observer for electing the leader of legislature party in Bihar”.
Senior JD(U) leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, had said here earlier in the day "the new chief minister will be elected by the NDA, upon the recommendation of the BJP, which has a big role to play".
Speculations are doing the rounds that Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who holds the crucial Home portfolio in the outgoing government, is the frontrunner among contenders for the top job.
BJP leaders in the state, who have been making frantic visits to Delhi in the recent past, are keeping their cards close to the chest.
"Who will be the next CM is a decision to be taken by our central leadership," minister Dilip Jaiswal, who is a former state BJP president, had said a day ago, adding, "I am not at all in the race".
Other than Choudhary, who had joined the BJP less than a decade ago, those whose names are doing the rounds include Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai and state ministers Lakhendra Paswan and Shreyasi Singh.
According to BJP sources, all these leaders fit the bill in different ways. Choudhary is a ‘Koeri’, and his elevation could ensure that the ‘Luv Kush’ (Kurmi Koeri) equation nurtured by Kumar during his 20-year-rule remained intact in favour of the NDA, after the JD(U) supremo's departure.
Rai is a Yadav and brings the promise of support of the largest caste group in Bihar, which has been with Lalu Prasad's RJD, the BJP's principal rival in the state, for decades.
Paswan is a Dalit and his elevation could help the BJP transcend its "pro-upper caste" image, which brings its own disadvantages in the Hindi heartland, where the Mandal agitation of the 1990s has cast a long shadow, the sources said.
Singh, in her 30s, is an upper caste Rajput, but her elevation could be projected as the party giving preference to young blood.
Moreover, the party has also been trying to present itself as a champion of gender equality, by pushing through the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ that ensures 33 per cent reservation to women in both Houses of Parliament.
However, the BJP sources admitted that there was a strong possibility of the central leadership springing a "surprise", citing examples of many states ruled by the party, where less fancied leaders have landed the top job in the recent past.
Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, a Trinamool Congress MP who spent nearly three decades in the BJP, had said, while commenting on the political situation in Bihar that "we have plenty of deserving people here but we must be beware of a baba who may arrive with a parchi".
The allusion was to Rajasthan, where Bhajan Lal Sharma was named the chief minister two years ago at a legislature party meeting, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was seen on camera taking out a piece of paper with the name of the first-term MLA written on it.
