india

Updated: Oct 31, 2019 21:45 IST

Shiv Sena’s senior leader Sanjay Raut on Thursday met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar even as his party continues its tussle with the BJP over government formation in Maharashtra, reports said.

“I had come to wish him on the occasion of Diwali. We also discussed the politics in Maharashtra,” Sanjay Raut said, according to news agency Asian News International.

The Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party have been locked in a bitter tussle over sharing power after they were re-elected in the October 21 state elections.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party had started the negotiations by demanding that the BJP stick to a 50-50 power-sharing formula the two parties had reportedly decided in February this year.

The BJP’s presumptive chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, has said there was no such decision to share the chief minister’s post in the state.

The BJP is offering the Shiv Sena two or three more berths in the council of ministers over the 13 slots that it has had in the 2014 edition of the alliance government, under the power-sharing formula that is under discussion between them.

The BJP has made it clear that the chief minister’s post wasn’t up for discussion. Neither are strategically important portfolios such as home, finance, revenue and urban development. It has offered public works, housing and agriculture departments, among others, to the Sena.

The negotiations to firm up the shape and format of the new government that is likely to be formed early next week will enter the home stretch over the weekend, people familiar with the development said.

The BJP won 105 seats and the Sena bagged 56 in the 288-member assembly. The opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has 54 seats while its alliance partner Congress has 44. Independents and smaller parties together — including partners of both alliances — have 29 seats.