Maharashtra deadlock: Fadnavis to meet Shah, Sena's Raut to meet governor

The Sena on Sunday escalated its rhetoric, with senior leader Sanjay Raut claiming the party would soon have its chief minister with the support of "170 MLAs". Raut is scheduled to meet Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at 5pm today. "Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, along with other senior party leaders, is scheduled to meet Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at 5pm," the office of Maharashtra Governor said. Raut will request the governor to invite the single largest party to form the government in Maharashtra.

While Raut continued taking sharp barbs at the BJP, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis exuded confidence that the impasse will end soon and a new government will be in place.

On the other hand, Sena president Uddhav Thackeray did not commit any deadline to formation of government.

In the recently-held polls, the BJP (105) and the Sena (56) collectively won 161 seats in the 288-member House.

However, the two parties, which fought the polls in alliance, have got caught in a stalemate over the chief minister's post, with the Sena demanding equal division of the top post's tenure and the BJP rejecting it.

Amid the impasse, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will head to Delhi on Monday to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

While the state government announced a Rs 10,000 crore package for affected farmers, ally Sena as well as opposition Congress and NCP called it inadequate considering the several lakh hectares of crops that have been damaged.

The state government had earlier put the crop area damaged at 54.22 lakh hectares.

Incidentally, earlier in the day, the Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut had raised the "mysterious silence" of Shah, who heads the BJP, on the deadlock over formation of government.

The term of the current Maharashtra Legislative Assembly ends on November 9. 

-Inputs from PTI