NAGPUR, DECEMBER 13: A fresh trial of strength between the Democratic Front and Sena-BJP alliance is on the cards on the eve of the election to the Deputy Speaker of the lower house.While the front is likely nominate Congress member and former minister of state Pramod Shende, the Sena-BJP will field an independent candidate for the crucial elections.At a high level meeting of the Sena-BJP combine, which was addressed by former chief minister Narayan Rane and BJP leader Gopinath Munde, it was decided to contest the election and to field an independent legislator.``No doubt we lost in the Speaker's election, but now I am sure, it will not be difficult task for the alliance,'' Rane said, while Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal said the front will win the election in view of the clear majority for the front.By and large, it has been a practice to nominate the Speaker as well as the Deputy Speaker by consensus. The Speaker's post is given to the ruling party, while the Deputy Speaker's post is held by the main opposition. However, when the new Assembly was constituted, the Sena-BJP combine decided to contest the poll and fielded senior BJP leader Girish Bapat for the election. In the House of 288, front nominee Arunlal Gujarathi was elected by defeating Bapat by a margin of 16 votes.For the Deputy Speaker's election, initially, Shiv Sena was planning to field its own nominee. However, the proposal was dropped to avoid yet another embarrassment.Since the Congress proposal was rejected by the Sena-BJP, the former has now decided to contest the election of the Deputy Speaker also to once again prove its majority on the floor of the House.Meanwhile, the BJP has decided that it will not be a party to Shiv Sena's move to make unstable the Vilasrao Deshmukh government. At a two-day special workshop for the newly elected legislators, both Union Minister Pramod Mahajan and Munde made it clear that their party will not succumb to the pressure from the Shiv Sena.According to a senior BJP leader, Mahajan specifically told the workshop that his party was not keen to form the government in Maharashtra with the help of defectors. In the event, if the government collapses on its own, then only BJP will take a lead in forming the government, however, under no circumstances, it will encourage defection from any of the front constituents.``Let the front government rule the State for five years. We will function as a powerful opposition party. We will wrest the power from the Congress-NCP alliance only through ballot boxes and not by way of defection,'' Mahajan told the legislators.Under such circumstances, the BJP leader said, it differs from the Shiv Sena on destabilising the Vilasrao Deshmukh government. ``The view of the party is that the mandate is not in our favour since we failed to obtain a clear majority,'' the BJP leader remarked.
