GAME OF THRONES

Amit Shah calls off visit; Fadnavis asserts he will be CM for five years; denies any assurance was given to Shiv Sena

The ongoing brinkmanship by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena has put a serious question mark on the formation of a new government in the state.

Confident of the Sena's support, willy-nilly, the BJP has clearly rejected the idea of giving the CM post to its partner.

The BJP and the Sena, which won 105 and 56 seats respectively, in the recently concluded state assembly polls, are locked in a bitter battle over power-sharing. The BJP national president Amit Shah, who was scheduled to visit Mumbai on Wednesday and meet Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, has called off his Mumbai visit due to the lingering impasse.

On Tuesday, the Sena called off a 4pm meeting with the BJP. The meeting was to be attended by Sena leaders Sanjay Raut and Subhash Desai and BJP leaders Bhupendra Yadav and Prakash Javadekar.

"We are confident that the Shiv Sena will go with us. Neither the BJP nor the Sena are exploring any other options. The Shiv Sena was not promised the CM's post for two- and-a-half years at the time of the alliance formation before the Lok Sabha poll. They might wish to have the CM post for five years," Fadnavis told reporters at his official residence, 'Varsha'.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already announced the name of the new CM and the meeting will only be a formality," he said, in an apparent reference to Modi's statement in the run-up to the polls that Fadnavis would lead the coalition as CM.

The BJP's newly elected legislators will meet at 1pm on Wednesday, to elect their new leader. This meeting will be attended by Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and the party's national vice president Avinash Khanna, informed BJP state chief Chandrakant Patil.

According to sources, Fadnavis claims he will be the next CM but the party will take its time to name its CM face. Fadnavis also ruled out the 1995 formula for cabinet berth sharing.

"We have not received any concrete proposal from the Shiv Sena. We will not take a lead on it. But if a concrete proposal comes from the Sena, we will consider it and discuss it with the high command."

— Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan

"No such decision was taken, nor did we receive any such proposal from the Sena," he claimed. Speaking on the proposal to make Aaditya Thackeray deputy CM, he clarified that he had no reservations on the issue. "This decision has to be taken by the Sena and I will happily work with Aaditya," he said. According to a senior leader present at the CM's meeting, "The Shiv Sena does not have any choice. The NCP has already made it clear it will not support the Sena. At all costs, they will have to join us."

Formula acceptable to both: The BJP realises that the Sena will leverage the situation to extract maximum advantage. BJP sources claim the party will give the Sena the deputy CM post. "We are ready to give the Sena power, the public works department, housing and public health as a compromise, for their support," said a BJP leader.

When asked how the BJP could agree to share cabinet berths equally when it has double the strength of the Sena, Fadnavis said, "We will distribute these berths on merit and the issue will be resolved after the process of support from Independents and smaller parties is complete. This support becomes crucial for the future legislative council and the Rajya Sabha election. Both, the BJP and Sena will be happy after seatsharing," the CM said. He also hinted that the cabinet berth sharing would not be an exact 50:50 but the BJP would have more berths. "During the seat-sharing process, the Shiv Sena was insistent on settling for not less than 50 per cent assembly seats. But finally, they agreed to 124 -- 20 seats less than their 50 per cent demand. This time too, they will stretch out matters up to a point. But we are confident, we will manage to get them to join us in government," another BJP leader said.

Most possible scenarios: Being the single largest party, the BJP can stake claim to form the government. It will try its best to win the trust vote. It will try to get the support of all Independents and ensure that some legislators from the Sena, Congress and the NCP will abstain from voting, thus reducing the effective strength of the House. BJP MP Sanjay Kakade told a television channel on Tuesday, around 45 newly elected Shiv Sena MLAs in Maharashtra were keen on government formation by joining hands with the BJP.

"Of the 56 MLAs, there are 45 who have expressed their interest in government formation with the BJP. They are calling and asking us to induct them into the government," Kakade told the TV channel. Kakade's statement was a hint that the BJP may not shy from engineering defections in the Shiv Sena to form the government.

The second option before the BJP will be to get support from the NCP. The NCP has 54 legislators and in 2014, it had helped the BJP win the floor test by remaining neutral during voting. The BJP can offer a key portfolio to Supriya Sule in the Modi government and ensure protection in ongoing Enforcement Directorate cases against Praful Patel and Pawar family members. If all these options fail, then the second largest party, the Shiv Sena, can stake its claim and the NCP and the Congress can support the Sena in forming the government.

Drought of political experience: 'We did not get drenched in the rain' "We were too politically inexperienced to get drenched in the rain," admitted the CM, referring to the NCP chief Sharad Pawar whose speech in the rain proved to be a game-changer. He was fielding a question on why the BJP-Sena could not win more than 220 seats. He also targeted the Sena leader Sanjay Raut, who is constantly criticising the BJP through the Sena mouthpiece, Saamna.