BJP can’t form government without Sena support, says Sanjay Raut

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, October 23

The Bharatiya Janata Party will have to team up with the Shiv Sena to form the next government, Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut told reporters here on Wednesday.

The statement by Raut, who is the Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP, comes one day before the counting of votes in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.

”The BJP will include the Shiv Sena even if it wins four or five seats,” Raut said amidst a suggestion that the national party would dump its regional ally if it manages a majority on its own. “There is a love-hate relationship between both the parties. But the alliance will surely not break,” he added. Some exit polls have suggested that the BJP would win more than 140 of the 288 seats in the Maharashtra legislature.

According to Raut, the Sena would win at least 100 of the 124 seats it contested.

On Tuesday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters that the NDA would win a two-thirds majority in the Maharashtra Assembly.