Shiv Sena MPs met Sonia Gandhi

Shiv Sena MPs Anil Desai, Gajanan Kirtikar, Arvind Sawant and Rahul Shewale met Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi, here earlier on Monday.

Shiv Sena MPs have been allotted seats on the opposition side in both houses of Parliament as the party worked out an alliance with the Congress and NCP to form a government in Maharashtra.

On the other hand, hours after they staked claim to form the government in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress claimed the support of over 162 MLAs as they gathered at a five-star hotel in Mumbai in the evening in a massive show of strength ahead of the Supreme Court's order on government formation in the state.

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 in Mumbai 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.