NCP submits 'support' list to Governor

The Maharashtra Governor's spokesperson confirmed that NCP general secretary Prakash Denkare has submitted a list of MLAs supporting the NCP to the Governor yesterday. The list is supposed to comprise the names of 80 MLAs.

Meanwhile, a senior governor's secretariat official told Business Standard: "The state election commission will be meeting the Governor today to submit the list of elected candidates to the 288 assembly constituencies in the state. After this, the notification dissolving the current state legislature would be issued. Chief Minister (Sushilkumar Shinde) will also submit his resignation, and will be asked to continue as a caretaker chief minister of the state."

Thereafter, the party that has the support of the largest number of MLAs (both its own elected MLAs as well as those independent MLAs and other party MLAs who support it) will be asked to form the government and prove its strength on the floor of the house, he added.

According to well-informed sources, the state NCP leaders meeting held in the city passed a resolution authorising party chief Sharad Pawar to nominate the leader of the party. The resolution was proposed by former NCP deputy chief minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil and seconded by his predecessor Chaggan Bhujbal, former cabinet minister Nawab Mallick and several other NCP functionaries.

While the Congress insists that it is the righful claimant to holding the post of chief minister in Maharashtra, Pawar is believed to have pointed out his party's clear dominance in the just concluded assembly elections in the state while placing his claim.

According to Pawar, any calculation on strength of MLAs that the NCP or the Congress party has won in the elections clearly indicates an NCP supremacy. "Whether the Congress wants to go by virtue of the total seats won by the two parties on their respective party symbols or if it wants to compute the number of MLAs supporting the individual parties - both ways the NCP is way ahead. The Congress should now exhibit maturity that is expected of a national party of its calibre and gracefully accept the NCP's right to chief ministership in the state," a senior NCP leader told Business Standard.

Pawar is believed to have even offered to support a Congress led government in the state, from outside in the event of his party being denied the chief minister's post in Maharashtra.

Congress leaders, on the other hand, point out that since Sonia Gandhi had campaigned full fledgedly for both party candidates throughout Maharashtra, and even allowed NCP candidates to contest from several safe Congress seats, the NCP was now unfairly claiming pre-eminence over the Congress, merely on virtue of having won one additional seat.