An Independent legislator in Maharashtra backed by the Nationalist Congress Party on Monday pledged support to the Shiv Sena, which is involved in a power tussle with senior alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party, PTI reported. The Sena wants the saffron party to share the chief minister’s post over the next government’s five-year tenure, as well as share Cabinet portfolios. However, the BJP is not keen to accept the “50:50 formula”.

“I represent a rural area where problems are more complicated,” Nevasa MLA Shankarrao Gadakh, who met Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai. “If I have to solve people’s issues, it is better to stay with the party which is going to form the government. Hence, I visited Mumbai today and extended support to the Sena.”

This came on a day two Independent MLAs – Chandrapur legislator Kishor Jorgewar, and Badnera legislator Ravi Rana – threw their weight behind the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP won 105 seats, and the Shiv Sena 56. Together, the two parties can cross the majority mark of 145 in the legislature to form a government.

Rebel BJP MLA Geeta Jain, who contested as an Independent from the Mira-Bhayander seat and defeated the saffron party’s Narendra Mehta, has extended her support to the BJP, while two MLAs of the Prahar Janshakti Party have offered their support to the Shiv Sena.

With these new pledges, the BJP has the support of 108 legislators while the Shiv Sena has the backing of 59 MLAs. The Sena has threatened to explore other options to form government if the BJP refuses to share power. It has asked the saffron party to provide it with a written assurance on the matter.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Monday said his party’s insistence on sharing power was not a demand but an agreement. “They gave us their word before the national election...you can’t delete what you said in front of the media,” he told NDTV. “You can tear paper, you can make files disappear. You can set fire to the Mantralaya, like they set fire to the Mantralaya to destroy files... But this agreement on power-sharing, how will you delete it.”

Maharashtra’s state secretariat, called Mantralaya, has caught fire twice – once in 2012 and again in 2013. In the first episode, five people were killed and thousands of important files were reportedly destroyed.

Raut asked the BJP not to compel the Shiv Sena “to commit the sin of looking for an alternative for government formation”, News18 reported. “No one is a saint in politics,” he added, insinuating that committing that the party would not hesitate to commit the “sin”.

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