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Will or won’t: Ball in Sena’s court

Constitutional expert Ulhas Bapat said with the largest party, the BJP with 105 MLAs, conveying its inability to form the government, the Governor was left with no other option than to approach the second largest party, which has 56 MLAs.

Maharashtra government formation, Maharashtra govt formation, govt formation Maharashtra, Maharashtra elections, India news, Indian Express A combination of parties can also be invited by the Governor to form the government in case the Sena says it does not have the numbers.
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WITH GOVERNOR Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Sunday asking the Shiv Sena, the second largest party in the Assembly, to “indicate willingness ability” to form the government, what Sena does next will decide if there will be an end to the prevailing uncertainty in the state.

Constitutional expert Ulhas Bapat said with the largest party, the BJP with 105 MLAs, conveying its inability to form the government, the Governor was left with no other option than to approach the second largest party, which has 56 MLAs. “The Sena will have to submit a list containing the names and signatures of MLAs supporting it. But this is not mandatory… it is at the discretion of the Governor. The Sena can convey to the Governor that it has the numbers to prove majority on the floor of the House. The Governor can then install its chief minister and later ask it to prove majority,” Bapat added.

He further said 20 years ago, then President K R Narayanan had set a precedent by inviting the largest group to form the government.

“Narayanan had not invited the single largest party to form the government. Instead, he had asked a group of parties to prove majority in Parliament,” he said, adding that Narayanan gave weightage to stability of the government.

This means, a combination of parties can also be invited by the Governor to form the government in case the Sena says it does not have the numbers. “The Congress-NCP, which is the largest group, can stake claim but for this, they will have to submit a letter of support from the Sena if it intends to take support from the party. Again this is not the rule…,” Bapat said.

Yet another option is that all three parties, Congress, NCP and Sena, together submit a letter, staking claim for forming the government.

On the installation of a chief minister, Bapat said the Constitution merely states that “chief minister will be appointed by the Governor”. “There is nothing else mentioned,” he added.

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Bapat said if all the major parties — BJP, Sena, Congress and NCP — convey their inability to form the government, the Governor can recommend the President’s Rule in the state. “This can be done by conveying to the President that constitutional machinery in the state has failed.”

He added that President’s Rule can be extended to one year. “For this, a certificate from the Election Commission of India is required, stating that it cannot hold elections in the state,” he said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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