Amid the ongoing rift between the BJP and Shiv Sena over the seat-sharing formula to form government in Maharashtra, Congress MP Husain Dalwai has written to Sonia Gandhi about an opportunity with the party to form the government in the state.

In his letter to interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi, MP Husain Dalwai has written that the party has a chance to form the government in Maharashtra with the help of alliance with the Shiv Sena and NCP.

"As BJP and Shiv Sena are struggling to come together to form a government, certain sections of supporters of Congress are of the opinion that Congress and our ally NCP should be open to the prospect of forming a government with Shiv Sena," Husain Dalwai wrote.

Dalwai added, "In the run-up to the assembly elections, many of our MLAs and other political leaders were poached by BJP and if they are able to form the government, they will again start doing this with much more vigour. But if we are able to form the government with Shiv Sena, then this can be prevented and instead we will be able to solidify our base."

Saying the BJP and Shiv Sena are parties with different ideologies, the Congress MP said it is imperative to stop BJP from forming the government.

"We must remember that BJP has consistently followed RSS's doctrine of one nation, one leader, one party, one religion but Shiv Sena has been seen to take a more inclusive stand recently," he wrote.

On Friday, Congress MP Husain Dalwai had told news agency ANI that Sena's ideology is better than that of the BJP. "Congress ideology may differ from the Sena but their ideology is better than BJP's. Sena's ideology speaks about Marathi Manus. Personally, I feel there is nothing wrong to raise the issue of faces by Marathi people," Dalwai said.

When asked if Congress will support Shiv Sena to form government in Maharashtra, Dalwai had said, "Why not?!" "There is a history that Shiv Sena had supported Congress many times including former prime minister Indira Gandhi during the emergency period and the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra AR Antule. The Sena had also supported Pratibha Patil while she was in the race to be the president of the country," he said.

He said that if Uddhav Thackrey's Sena comes with any proposal to form an alliance with Congress to come into power then party high command would definitely give it a thought.

As Shiv Sena continues to push for its demand for 50-50 formula, ally BJP has said it will not share the Chief Minister's post, currently held by Devendra Fadanvis.

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