Maharashtra Governor invites BJP to form government, floor test on Monday
Mumbai, Nov 9: Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Saturday evening asked the BJP, the single largest party in the state, to "indicate willingness and ability" to form government, creating hope that the 15-day-long political impasse in the state will end.
The BJP's core committee will meet on Sunday and decide the future course of action, party leader Chandrakant Patil said.
Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni had met Governor Koshyari at Raj Bhavan earlier in the day, sources said.
The term of 13th Legislative Assembly of the state is due to end on Saturday midnight.
"We have just received the letter from the governor," Chandrakant Patil, who is state BJP president, told PTI,
"Our core committee will meet tomorrow and discuss the future course of action," he added.
According to Raj Bhavan statement, the governor asked Devendra Fadnavis, who is the leader of the state BJP's legislature wing, to "indicate the willingness and ability of his party to form the government".
"Elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly were held on October 21 and the results were declared on October 24. However, despite the passage of 15 days, no single party or alliance of parties has come forward to form the government," the statement said.
"The Governor has therefore decided to explore the possibility of formation of Government and today asked the leader of the elected members of the single largest party, that is BJP, to convey its willingness and ability to form the government," it further said.
The BJP won 105 seats in the October 21 elections, while the majority mark in the 288-member Assembly is 145.
Its ally Shiv Sena has won 56 seats, but the two parties are bickering over chief minister's post.
On Friday, after Fadnavis resigned as Chief Minister and was asked by the governor to continue as caretaker CM, the two allies had a bitter showdown over what had been decided mutually about the chief minister's post during their pre-poll negotiations.
While Fadnavis claimed that the BJP had never promised to share the chief minister's post with its ally, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray maintained that assurance of equal sharing of all posts had been given, and the BJP must not portray him as a liar.
The Shiv Sena has shifted most of its 56 MLAs to a hotel in suburban Malad, apparently to guard them against `poaching' attempts.
As many as 35 of the 44 Congress MLAs are in Jaipur, in Congress-ruled Rajasthan. A party legislator told PTI seeking anonymity that more MLAs are expected to join them.
AICC general secretary Mallikarjun Kharge and Maharashtra Congress president Balasaheb Thorat will meet them in Jaipur on Sunday, he said.
NCP president Sharad Pawar has called a meeting of party MLAs next week, a party source said.
"The MLAs will be coming to Mumbai on Monday. The meeting may happen a day later," the source said.
Earlier on Saturday, Pawar reiterated that the BJP and Shiv Sena should take initiative collectively to form government as they have people's mandate.
Uddhav Thackeray, who met the media on Saturday to give his reaction on the Ayodhya verdict, sidestepped a question about government formation. "That will happen. Don't worry. Today is a joyous day," he said, welcoming the SC judgment.
According to Anant Kalse, former principal secretary of the Maharashtra Legislature, till the governor does not summon the new (14th) Assembly, it will remain in "suspended animation".
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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.
