The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday gave enough indications that it was not averse to the outside support offered by the Nationalist Congress Party and made it clear that it will be going ahead with formation of a government in Maharashtra.
"As per norms of democracy, the largest party has the right to form the government. The BJP will be forming the government in Maharashtra," party President Amit Shah told a press conference in New Delhi as the results showed that the BJP will fall short of a majority.
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Virtually ignoring its erstwhile ally Shiv Sena, he said that the NCP has on its own offered "unconditional outside" support and "does not want to join the government".
Asked specifically what would the BJP do on NCP's offer, Shah said, "Just wait for sometime. The (BJP) parliamentary board will be meeting shortly (around 6 pm)."
To repeated questions, Amit Shah maintained that the BJP had not broken the alliance with Shiv Sena.
Taking a dig at the Sena with which the alliance broke over seat sharing, the BJP chief said, "The results have proved who was correct... We won more seats than we were being offered."
The BJP wanted to contest 134 out of 288 seats but Shiv Sena was not ready to give more than 119. As per the trends, the BJP, along with some small ally parties looks set to win 123 seats.
"We respect our allies and want to keep our alliances but not by sacrificing our workers," Shah asserted.
Describing the electoral victory in Maharashtra and Haryana as "two more steps towards Congress-free India", he said the win is "a kind of stamp of approval by the people on the Modi government's work, its policies and initiatives in the last four months."
The performance of the BJP has rendered the Congress ineligible for even the post of Leader of Opposition in both the states, he said. He said this victory has shown that "Modi is the undisputed leader of the country" and belies the theory of rivals that "Modi-wave is over" after minor by-poll setbacks. "The results have proved that like a tsunami, the Modi-wave is demolishing all opposition," Shah said.
The BJP chief asserted that if his party gets the "deserved right", it will want to keep all its alliances. He said the victory for BJP in the two states was the biggest in the electoral history, he said.
The maximum seats the BJP contested in Haryana before this assembly elections was 26 and never ever got more than 16 seats, the party chief said, while noting that in the outgoing House, it had only four MLAs. "This time we contested all the 90 seats, 74 for the first time, and won handsomely," Shah said as he observed that the party was set to get clear majority.
In the previous elections, the BJP got nine per cent votes in Haryana and this time it is 33 per cent, he said.
Turning to Maharashtra, he said the BJP never contested more than 119 seats. But after the break-up with Shiv Sena, the party contested all the 288 seats and was set to win 122. The BJP had won 46 seats last time.
About vote share, he said the BJP had got 14 per cent in the last elections but this time it has gone up to 27.8 per cent, which is a "big jump".
Image: BJP chief Amit Shah addresses a presser after BJP win in Maharahstra and Haryana
