MUMBAI, Nov 16 - The Shiv Sena will not attend the Sunday meeting of NDA constituents in Delhi on the eve of the winter session of Parliament beginning on November 18.
Speaking to reporters here, senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut also said the Uddhav Thackeray-led party walking out of the BJP-headed National Democratic Alliance (NDA) now remains a formality now.
In a sharp jibe at its estranged ally-turned-foe � the BJP, Raut said the NDA was not somebody�s property. �The Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal were equally important founders of the alliance,� he added.
The Shiv Sena, a long-standing constituent of the NDA, fell out with the BJP over sharing the chief ministerial post, a few days after the results of the Maharashtra assembly polls were announced on October 24.
The echo of the worsening relationship between the two parties reverberated at the national level too, with the Shiv Sena�s lone minister in the Narendra Modi government, Arvind Sawant, resigning on November 11.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had set preconditions that Sawant resign and the Shiv Sena walk out of the NDA bloc if it wants support of the Sharad Pawar-led party in forming government.
Meanwhile, a meeting between leaders of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress and Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, which was scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed. All the three parties are currently holding discussions among themeselves to form a coalition government in the state which is under President�s Rule.
Sena legislative party leader Eknath Shinde said the meeting was deferred as key leaders of all the three parties and MLAs were busy in their constituencies in view of the �wet drought� and for submitting details of their poll expenditure to the Election Commission.
The scheduled meeting with the Governor had triggered a speculation that the three parties might stake a claim to form government, but the leaders of the Sena and Congress maintained that the interaction was restricted to discuss the farm distress.
Unseasonal rains and delayed retreat of monsoon had damaged crops of farmers in many districts, with Marathwada and North Maharashtra regions bearing the brunt. � PTI
