Sena wanted to form govt in alliance with Cong after 2014 Maha elections: Prithviraj Chavan

Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan has revealed that the Shiv Sena had proposed to form a coalition government with his party and the NCP after the 2014 assembly election to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party from coming to power in the state.

But the Congress had immediately rejected the proposal then, Chavan said.

Even after the assembly election in 2019, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi was not ready for a coalition with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena but she relented after long deliberations, he told PTI in an interview.

In November, the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress formed a coalition government in Maharashtra under the leadership of Thackeray.

Asked what made the Congress join hands with the ideologically opposite Sena, Chavan said, "A similar situation emerged in 2014 as well. Then too, Shiv Sena and NCP had approached me to form a coalition government to stop the BJP. I immediately rejected the offer then and said winning and losing is normal in politics. In the past too, we lost elections and sat in the opposition."
Asked whether the coalition government in Maharashtra would last its full term, Chavan said, "Nobody can give a 100-percent guarantee in case of a coalition government. However, we came together against the BJP because it tried to kill the opposition and betrayed the Shiv Sena."
The former chief minister said there will not be a problem till the coalition partners have a common understanding. He, however, accepted that there will be issues in the day-to-day functioning of a government and there had been problems but the BJP is trying to "highlight the issues of the past."
Asked to share his views on NCP leader Ajit Pawar, Chavan said Sharad Pawar made the decision that his nephew be the deputy chief minister. "It would not be right for me to comment on this."