The Shiv Sena on Friday asked Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to resign, and advised the Bharatiya Janata Party – its senior alliance partner – not to misuse the provision of a “caretaker government” and remain in power amid a political stalemate, PTI reported.

The two allies have been unable to come to an agreement over the Shiv Sena’s demand to share the post of chief minister equally. The term of the current Assembly ends on Saturday. If no one stakes claim before the deadline, President’s Rule may be declared in the state.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut reiterated party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s remark that the BJP should approach it only if it wanted to share the chief minister’s post. “The single largest party should get the opportunity to form government first,” Raut told NDTV. “That is the BJP. They should get not just 15 days, but one month to prove their majority in the Assembly.”

In an article in its mouthpiece Saamna, the Sena accused its senior alliance partner of creating political instability in the state, according to Hindustan Times. “...Even after 14 days of the election results, the deadlock over government formation has not been resolved,” it said. “The BJP, which is the single largest party met governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari but came back empty-handed, therefore the buzz that BJP will stake claim has fizzled out... Now all the political parties and the people have started saying that the instability and complication in Maharashtra is due to the BJP.”

A delegation of BJP leaders, including state unit chief Chandrakant Patil and state Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, met Koshyari on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Union Transport Minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari reiterated that his party would get the support of Shiv Sena to form a government under Fadnavis’s leadership.

Maharashtra’s Congress MLAs meet

Meanwhile, the Congress called a meeting of its newly elected MLAs in Mumbai on Friday amid uncertainty over government formation. State Congress President Balasaheb Thorat and other senior leaders will attend the meeting, which was supposed to begin around 10.30 am, according to unidentified party members. All the 44 legislators of the Opposition party are expected to be in attendance.

Some unidentified leaders claimed that the legislators might be moved to Jaipur in order to foil defection attempts.

On Thursday, the Shiv Sena had shifted its MLAs to a hotel in Mumbai’s Bandra locality.

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