Congress, Pawar get into act

The Congress party, which is in a wait-and-watch mode, summoned all its MLAs to Mumbai, as the process of government formation gained momentum. NCP chief Sharad Pawar, too, has wound up his tour of floodhit areas and returned to the city. In the backdrop of the buzz about orchestrated defections, the Congress, too, has decided to keep all its MLAs quarantined at an undisclosed location. NCP chief Sharad Pawar, meanwhile, has started giving finishing touches to the common minimum programme for the non-BJP formulation.

He is reportedly looking for common denominators in all the three party manifestos.

GOVERNOR HOBNOBS WITH AG

As the clock ticked away, signalling the expiry of the Maharashtra assembly's tenure, state Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni met Governor B.S. Koshyari to discuss the legal and constitutional issues. Kumbhakoni reached the Raj Bhavan shortly after a BJP delegation led by its state President Chandrakant Patil and ministers Girish Mahajan, Sudhir Mungantiwar and Ashish Shelar met the Governor to seek his advice. Ranked amongst the most politically stable states in the country, in its entire 59-year history, Maharashtra has witnessed President's Rule only twice - for 112 days in February-June, 1980, and later for 33 days in September-October 2014. Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday challenged the BJP to stake its claim as the single largest party and submit a list of 145 MLAs to the Governor, or quit the race and announce publicly that it has no majority, so that other parties can explore viable options.

On the other hand, the BJP said that the political crisis would be resolved soon and incumbent Devendra Fadnavis will be the chief Minister again with both Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and state Minister Mungantiwar separately reiterating this.