The Shiv Sena is set to form government in Maharashtra with support from Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, sources say. The breakthrough took place soon after it emerged that Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray spoke to Congress president Sonia Gandhi as the two ideologically mismatched parties tried to get past their differences to collaborate. Uddhav Thackeray had also met with Sharad Pawar at a five-star hotel in Mumbai earlier as alliances shape-shifted in one of India’s biggest states. The Sena set the stage for talks with its rivals with its only minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, Arvind Sawant, resigning, signaling the party’s severing of ties with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) after a feud over power sharing.
