Pawar, Fadnavis in Delhi, Rane says BJP government in Maharashtra in March

Union minister Narayan Rane on Friday claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party will form a government in Maharashtra in March 2022.

Rane's statement came on a day when state BJP leaders Devendra Fadnavis and Chandrakant Patil as well as Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and his party colleague Praful Patel were in the national capital, sparking speculation.

Incidentally, the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government will complete two years on Saturday.

Fadnavis met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi, sources said.

Speaking to reporters in Jaipur, Rane said, "BJP will form a government in Maharashtra in March."

Asked to elaborate, he said toppling and forming governments is done in secrecy and it cannot be discussed in public.

''State (BJP) president Chandrakant Patil has spoken about this and I hope it comes true,'' Rane said.

Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole told reporters in Nagpur that the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government will complete its full term.

"BJP keeps making big predictions and they don't come true....Nobody believes BJP,'' he said.

Sources in the BJP and NCP played down the significance of the visits of their respective leaders to the national capital at the same time.

Fadnavis and Patil were in Delhi to discuss "organisational matters" with the central leadership, said a BJP leader.

Pawar  traveled to Delhi to attend a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on defence and his schedule had been planned a week ago, an NCP source said.

The MVA government was formed in November 2019, after the assembly elections, as the Shiv Sena walked out of its decades-old alliance with the BJP over the issue of sharing the chief minister's post.