Sena, NCP, Congress seal Maharashtra deal, Uddhav to have only one deputy
Top leaders of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress met Wednesday afternoon at the YB Chavan auditorium to discuss power sharing formula after staking claim on Tuesday to form the government.
The Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress hammered out a power-sharing deal in Maharashtra at a marathon meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday according to which Chief Minister-designate Uddhav Thackeray will have only one deputy, NCP leader Praful Patel said.
“There will be only one deputy chief minister. That will be from NCP. Speaker of the Assembly will be from the Congress. Up to two ministers from each party will take oath on Thursday,” Patel said after the meeting of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi coalition.
Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting among the three parties, there had been speculation that there would be two deputy chief ministers – one each from the NCP and the Congress.
Top leaders of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress began the meeting at the YB Chavan auditorium in the afternoon to discuss power sharing formula after staking claim on Tuesday to form the government.
Uddhav Thackeray, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Congress leader Ahmed Patel were present at the meeting of Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena MLAs.
The Shiv Sena will have 15 ministers in Uddhav Thackeray’s council of ministers in Maharashtra while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will 13 other ministerial berths besides the deputy CM’s post, sources said according to ANI. The Congress would also get 13 ministerial berths.
Thackeray, who will take oath as Chief Minister on Thursday, met Pawar separately earlier in the day to fine tune the formation of the new council of ministers. Pawar had also met senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel, K C Venugopal and others before his talks with Thackeray.
Pawar has been at the centre of government formation talks among the three parties ever since the Sena reached out to the NCP and the Congress for an alliance
Earlier in the day, pro tem Speaker Kalidas Kolambkar administered the oath to the newly-elected legislators at a special session of the legislative assembly convened by Govenor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari on the orders of the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, the top court had ordered the oath ceremony ahead of a floor test for former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis that was to be held by 5 pm Wednesday. Fadnavis chose to resign on Tuesday instead of facing a trust vote.
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