Shiv Sena set to skip NDA meet, exit ‘just a formality’

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena, which is on the verge of breaking its alliance with the BJP, will not attend the meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA on Sunday, the eve of the winter session of the Parliament.

Sena’s exit from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is a mere formality now, a senior Sena leader said on Saturday and, for the first time since it staked claim to the post of chief minister, Shiv Sena has said that it wants party chief Uddhav Thackeray to be the chief minister of the state.

“We want Uddhavji to lead the government in Maharashtra,” Sena MP Sanjay Raut said. Earlier, the names of Uddhav’s son Aaditya and senior leaders like Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai were discussed among the party circles for the post of CM.

The winter session of the Parliament will be held from November 18 to December 13. Though Sena has decided to boycott the pre-session NDA meeting, it is likely to attend the all-party meeting convened by the BJP-led government.

“I have learnt that the NDA meeting will be held on November 17. We had already decided against attending the meeting due to the current political developments in Maharashtra. Out minister has also resigned from the Central government,” Mr Raut said. The Sena’s lone minister in the Narendra Modi government, Arvind Sawant, had resigned on November 11.

According to the Rajya Sabha MP, the Sena has not received an invitation to attend the NDA meeting. “It’s all alright if the invitation is not there. We had already decided against it,” he added.

The Sena MP also took a dig at the BJP saying NDA is nobody’s property. “Bal Thackeray and Akali Dal are equally important founders of the NDA,” he said.

The seating arrangement of Shiv Sena’s MPs in Rajya Sabha was changed on Saturday. Sources said that Sena MPs Sanjay Raut and Anil Desai will now sit in the Opposition benches during the winter session of the Parliament.

Sena’s Lok Sabha MP Vinayak Raut warned the BJP saying it will have to face the consequences.

“The seating arrangement of Sena MPs in the Rajya Sabha has been changed deliberately, but it will not have any impact on the changing equations in the state,” he said.

Maharashtra was placed under President’s rule on November 12 after no party or alliance staked claim to form the government. The Sena reached out to the Congress-NCP combine for support after its alliance with the BJP collapsed. The BJP and the Sena, which fought the October 21 polls in an alliance, secured a comfortable majority by winning 105 and 56 seats, respectively, in the 288-member assembly. The Congress and NCP, pre-poll allies, won 44 and 54 seats.