Mumbai: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and his MLA-son Aaditya met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar here late Thursday night.
The over an hour-long meeting took place at Pawar’s residence ‘Silver Oak’ in South Mumbai as the Shiv Sena continued its effort form government in Maharashtra with the support of the NCP and the Congress.
The Thackerays called on Pawar, a Rajya Sabha MP, after he arrived here from New Delhi in the evening. The Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut was also present at the meeting. However, no Congress leader was present at the meeting.
“Since it was a meeting between top leaders, only they will know what transpired there. But the discussion is likely to have revolved around giving final touches to sharing of posts in the government being planned to be formed,” an NCP leader told reporters.
The meeting took place on a day when Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said in New Delhi that his party and the NCP have ‘complete unanimity’ on all issues concerning government formation in Maharashtra and will now hold talks with the Shiv Sena to ‘finalise the architecture of the alliance’.
Sources said that the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress are likely to make a formal announcement later Friday about joining hands to take a shot at power in the state.
Meanwhile after emerging from the meeting none spoke, but Uddhav Thackeray smiled and Raut gave the ‘thumbs up’ sign, indicating all was on the right track.
Though details are not available, it is learnt that Pawar briefed briefed the Shiv Sena leaders them on all the political developments in New Delhi in the past five days. Sources said that in the meeting, the power-sharing formula, the post of chief minister, deputy chief minister and other ministries were also discussed.
It’s expected that the three parties alliance – likely to be christened ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’, will be formally announced and they would soon take the claim to form the government before Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari.
Agencies