MUMBAI: Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray is learnt to have had a meeting with senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel late Tuesday night where a new formula of power-sharing was discussed.
According to this new formula, the Shiv Sena and the NCP would share the Chief Minister's post for 2.5 years each while the Congress shall get a Deputy Chief Minister for five years.
All the three parties shall get 14 ministries each, as per the proposed Shiv Sena formula.
Patel's reaction to the formula couldn't be known as after the meeting he left for Delhi late in the night, sources said.
Earlier, the Congress had proposed a formula to share power in Maharashtra where every party would get one minister each for every four MLAs of theirs, while the NCP had proposed rotational CM for 20 months each.
While these formulae were briefly discussed at the meeting of Congress and NCP leaders, the Shiv Sena avoided reacting to the proposals.
Later it became clear that the party proposed the same formula which the BJP had discarded.
The Shiv Sena, meanwhile, is firm on tying up with the Congress and the NCP.
"Now that we have ample time at hand we plan to study how parties from diverse ideologies had run governments. We shall study the formula between BJP and Mehbuba Mufti (PDP), BJP and Nitish (JDU), BJP and Paswan (LJP). I've asked for information on all these and we shall evolve our own formula," Thackeray had told last night to media while taking potshots at BJP's non-ideological alliances in various states.
"We are prepared to trade our own way," he said while justifying party's proposal to ally with the Congress and the NCP.
The Congress, in its proposal, had said that none of the Thackerays would occupy CM or Dy CM's post.
However, party sources later said that the condition is likely to be dropped in the course of negotiations which are likely to take place over the next few months.