Maharashtra political crisis: 4 possible scenarios

Mumbai, Nov 10: As the BJP on government formation in Maharashtra, a new political situation is arising in state politics wherein a Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government supported by the Congress may be a possibility.

In the 0ct 21 assembly election, BJP won 105 seats, its alliance partner Shiv Sena bagged 56, while the opposition NCP got 54 and its alliance partner Congress managed 44. The majority mark in the 288-member assembly is 145.

If the Sena decides to form a government with the support of Opposition parties, the collective strength of all the three parties will go up to 154 in the House, just above the halfway mark.

While the Congress refused to open its cards, the NCP made it clear that the Sena would have to break away from the NDA before the Sharad Pawar-led party can think of lending support to the Uddhav Thackeray's party.

Possible scenarios

• The Shiv Sena will have to tie up with both the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress. Sena now officially stands at 63 with the help of Independents. And with the NCP's 54 and Congress' 44, the total tally is 161, which is a comfortable majority above the halfway mark of 144.
• Sena alone cannot form the government as the number of Independents and MLAs of smaller parties is only 13 and 16 respectively. All eyes are on NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who is meeting his party MLAs on Tuesday.
• The Shiv Sena and NCP may seek the support of all non-BJP and non-Congress MLAs, even then they will still fall short of a majority by 5 seats if any one of them refused to do do.
• There is also a possibility of Shiv Sena and NCP forming the government with the outside support of the Congress party.
• If none of these equations work out, President's Rule will have to be imposed in Maharashtra.

However, one question that remains unanswered is 'Did we really vote for an alliance like that?'