Samajwadi Party supports NCP-Cong-Shiv Sena alliance: Abu Azmi

Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi who was present at the show of strength of the NCP-Shiv Sena-Congress MLAs here on Monday evening extended his party's support to the alliance that has staked claim to form the government in Maharashtra.

"After approval from the party chief Akhilesh Yadav, I have given a letter showing the support of SP for Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance," said Azmi who was spotted sitting in the front row along with Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Balasaheb Thorat among others.

In a show of strength, the MLAs of the three parties pledged that they would not get "lured" and "will not do anything which will benefit BJP".

This comes at a time when Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena have in their attempt to keep their flock intact and to prevents any alleged attempts of 'poaching' or 'horse-trading' sequestered their MLAs in separate hotels in the city.

The three parties on Monday evening pooled their MLAs at Hotel Grand Hyatt where NCP MLAs are already staying, in a bid to show their strength.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar said that the three-party alliance has the majority and will form the government in Maharashtra. He was addressing the MLAs of the three parties who were assembled at the Hotel Grand Hyatt in a show of strength.

Earlier in the day, NCP legislative party leader Jayant Patil along with Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan and others visited Raj Bhawan and gave a letter showing the strength of 162 MLAs to the officials at Raj Bhavan.

After which Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut invited Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to "come and watch" the show of strength of the three parties.

The Supreme Court earlier today reserved the order on a joint petition filed by Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP against the decision of Koshyari to invite BJP to form government in the state.

The petitions were filed after BJP's Devendra Fadnavis took oath for the second consecutive term as the state Chief Minister, with NCP's Ajit Pawar as his Deputy Chief Minister on Saturday morning. This came when deliberations among Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena on the government formation had reached the final stage.

The order on whether the floor test will be conducted for proving the majority of the BJP-led Fadnavis government is expected to be pronounced at 10:30 am tomorrow.

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Ashok Bhushan, and Sanjiv Khanna today heard the arguments put forth by counsels appearing for Governor, Maharashtra BJP and other parties.