Maharashtra governor invites Devendra Fadnavis to form govt, asks him to prove majority in Assembly by 11 November

Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari has invited caretaker chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to form the government, and asked him to prove his majority by 11 November (Monday). On 30 October, Fadnavis was elected the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislative party leader in a party meeting held in Mumbai.

The BJP has emerged as the single-largest party after the Assembly election results.

The term of the 13th Assembly is set to end on Saturday midnight, but no indication has emerged from bickering allies BJP and Shiv Sena that they were ready to form the new government.

File image of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. Twitter/@ANI

The BJP's core committee will meet on Sunday and decide the future course of action, party leader Chandrakant Patil said.

According to a Raj Bhavan statement, the governor asked Devendra Fadnavis, who is the leader of the state BJP's legislature wing, to "indicate the willingness and ability of his party to form the government".

"Elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly were held on 21 October and the results were declared on 24 October. However, despite the passage of 15 days, no single party or alliance of parties has come forward to form the government," the statement said.

"The Governor has therefore decided to explore the possibility of formation of Government and today asked the leader of the elected members of the single largest party, that is BJP, to convey its willingness and ability to form the government," it further said.

Sources told PTI that Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni met Governor Koshyari at Raj Bhavan on Saturday. Koshyari had met the AG earlier this week too.

Over the past couple of weeks, the state witnessed a deadlock as the BJP and Sena, who together won enough seats in the 21 October state elections to come to power, are locked in a bitter tussle over the chief minister's post.

BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis resigned as chief minister on Friday. Koshyari accepted the resignation and asked him to continue as caretaker chief minister.

"Till the governor does not summon the new assembly, the 14th Assembly, which has been constituted, will remain in suspended animation," Anant Kalse, former principal secretary of the Maharashtra Legislature, told PTI.

The BJP won 105 seats in the elections, while the majority mark in the 288-member Assembly is 145. Its ally Shiv Sena has won 56 seats, but the two parties are bickering over chief minister's post.

On Friday, after Fadnavis resigned as Chief Minister and was asked by the governor to continue as caretaker chief minister, the two allies had a bitter showdown over what had been decided mutually about the chief minister's post during their pre-poll negotiations.

While Fadnavis claimed that the BJP had never promised to share the chief minister's post with its ally, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray maintained that assurance of equal sharing of all posts had been given, and the BJP must not portray him as a liar.

The Shiv Sena has shifted most of its 56 MLAs to a hotel in suburban Malad, apparently to guard them against `poaching' attempts.

As many as 35 of the 44 Congress MLAs are in Jaipur, in Congress-ruled Rajasthan. A party legislator told PTI seeking anonymity that more MLAs are expected to join them.

With inputs from PTI