Sena to sit in Opposition if BJP takes NCP support

Hours after the Union Council of Ministers was expanded on Sunday, a slighted Shiv Sena, which has been refused a Cabinet berth, declared it would sit in the opposition if the newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party-led minority government in Maharashtra sought the support of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to survive the trust vote on Wednesday.

The Sena will vote against the new government in the State if the BJP accepted support from the NCP, an anti-Hindutva party, party chief Uddav Thackeray told presspersons after a long huddle with Sena MLAs.

“How can you take support from [NCP chief] Sharad Pawar, who was the first to use words such as saffron terrorism? Is the BJP ready to accept support from the NCP, which supported the likes of Ishrat Jahan? If the BJP is ready to accept support from the NCP,” Mr. Thackeray said, “the Sena will sit in the opposition and vote against the BJP government in Maharashtra for the sake of Hindutva.”

However, he refused to say if the Sena would withdraw Anant Geete from the one slot that the Sena has in the Union Cabinet, continuing to keep the doors open for a rapprochement with the BJP.

“I will decide at the right time,” was all he said.

Last week, Mr. Pawar declared that if need be, his party would vote for the trust motion to be moved by the State’s first ever BJP Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis.

The announcement by Mr. Pawar, whose party has 41 MLAs, has weakened the bargaining power of the Sena, which has 63.