Cong, NCP pick Uddhav as CM: Three-party alliance may stake claim today

Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Friday confirmed that Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray would lead the government comprising his own party, the Congress and the Sena. Leaders of all three parties held several rounds of meetings through out the day to finalise all points related to government formation. The discussions, however, will continue and a final decision will be announced on Saturday, leaders from all three parties said.

“The leadership of Uddhav Thackeray has been unanimously accepted by the Congress and the NCP. Discussions on other issues are in progress. A detailed announcement on the formation the new government may be made on Saturday,” Mr Pawar said while emerging from a two-hour meeting attended by leaders of the three parties at Worli.

According to sources, the trio has agreed that Mr Thackeray will be the chief minister for the next five years. The decision was made in Mr Thackeray’s presence and was welcomed by all the leaders who thumped their assent, a source said. The Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena alliance may stake claim to form the government in Maharashtra on Saturday.

“The talks were satisfactory. We will end discussions soon and come before the media. We have come to a conclusion on many matters, but we don’t want to leave anything undecided. It’s the first time we’ve come together like this and we want to be united on eve-rything,” the Sena chief said as he left the meeting.

Mr Thackeray, his son Aaditya, Sena MP Sanjay Raut, Mr Pawar, NCP state chief Jayant Patil, Congress leaders Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjun Kharge and K.C. Venugopal held a meeting at Mumbai’s Nehru Centre in bid to close the deal to form the next government in Maharashtra.

Uddhav meets Sena MLAs, asks them to ‘stay together’
Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said, “We have formed a consensus on most points. Only a few points remain to be concluded.”

Earlier in the day, Thackeray also met party legislators and told them the process to form a Sena-led dispensation in the state was in the final stages. He instructed the MLAs to stay together in Mumbai as they may be required any time, a party MLA said.

President’s Rule was imposed in Maharashtra on November 12 after the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP failed to form the government. BJP and Sena fought the election as allies and managed to win a comfortable majority of 161 seats, bagging 105 and 56 seats respectively. However, Thackeray refused to support the BJP-led government as he did not get an assurance on sharing the CM’s post for two and a half years. The Congress and the NCP, which are pre-poll allies, won 44 and 54 seats respectively.

Together, Sena, Congress and NCP have 154 MLAs and with support of independents, the alliance can muster the support of 170 MLAs in the House.