Maharashtra Impasse: BJP core committee meets, to decide on Guv invite by evening

Mumbai, Nov 10: The Maharashtra BJP's core committee met on Sunday after the governor invited it to form government, senior party leader Sudhir Mungantiwar said, but did not divulge what transpired at the meeting.

He said they would hold another round of discussions later in the day following which a decision would be taken.

Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Saturday evening asked the BJP, the single largest party in the new Assembly, to "indicate the willingness and ability" to form government.

The BJP's core committee, comprising caretaker chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state unit head Chandrakant Patil, and senior leaders Girish Mahajan, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Ashish Shelar and Pankaja Munde, met at 11 am on Sunday to decide the future course of action, Mungantiwar told reporters.

Without giving any details of what was discussed in the meeting, he said, "The BJP will hold another round of meeting at 4 pm today following which we will communicate our decision to the governor and also make it public."

The BJP won 105 seats in the October 21 elections, while the majority mark in the 288-member Assembly is 145. Its ally Shiv Sena won 56 seats, but the two parties are bickering over the chief minister's post.

The term of the 13th state Assembly ended on Saturday.

On Friday, after Fadnavis resigned as chief minister and was asked by the governor to continue as caretaker CM, the two allies had a bitter showdown over what was decided mutually about the top post during their negotiations before the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year.