Mumbai Oct 22 (IANS) “People of Maharashtra have voted for development and progress of the state,” Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said as the state’s ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance headed for its third consecutive victory in the assembly elections Thursday.
Hinting at a possibility of still running short of a few seats for the half-way mark of 145 seats in the 288-member assembly, Chavan said that Congress-NCP would form a government with the support of “secular and like-minded” parties.
He ruled out taking support of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) which was on track to bag at least four seats and was leading in another dozen-odd seats around the state.
“We have nothing to do with the war between the Shiv Sena and MNS,” was how Chavan dismissed the issue.
Asked who the next chief minister would be, he said that this would be decided by Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
The Congress-NCP coalition has had three chief ministers in the last two terms — Vilasrao Deshmukh, then Sushilkumar Shinde, followed by Deshmukh again and the present incumbent Chavan.