BJP will lead coalition govt, nothing decided on giving CM post to Shiv Sena: Fadnavis

Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said the BJP national president Amit Shah has not given any conformation about giving the Chief Minister's post to Shiv Sena.

However, he asserted that BJP will be leading a stable government with Shiv Sena for the next five years.

"BJP will be leading the stable and efficient government of Mahayuti (alliance) for 5 years. I assure that this will be a BJP-led government. Our party president has confirmed that nothing has been decided on giving CM post to Shiv Sena. No formula has been decided yet," Fadnavis told reporters here.

He claimed that BJP has the support of 10 independent MLAs till now. "We expect 5 more independent MLAs to support us," Fadnavis added.

 

Earlier in the day, two independent MLAs extended their support to Devendra Fadnavis and his party even as the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena try to resolve issues linked to government formation in Maharashtra after the recently concluded Assembly elections.

Mahesh Baldi, MLA from Uran constituency and Gondia MLA Vinod Agrawal declared their support to the BJP under the leadership of Fadnavis. Earlier, rebel BJP MLA Geeta Jain had also extended support to the party.

At least five independent MLAs including Prahar Janshakti Party chief Bacchu Kadu, his party MLA Rajkumar Patel, Ashish Jaiswal, Narendra Bhondekar and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-backed independent MLA Shankarrao Gadakh also extended their support to Shiv Sena.

The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance won an absolute majority in the Maharashtra Assembly polls with the former emerging as the single-largest party with 105 seats. Shiv Sena bagged 56 seats in the elections.

After the polls, Shiv Sena is adamant about the implementation of the 50:50 formula proposed by BJP during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The formula is a rotational arrangement in which a Chief Minister from each party will split the five-year term equally.

"The important question is who will be the chief minister? When the Lok Sabha elections were held we had decided on the 50-50 formula in the state," Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had said.