New Delhi: BJP held hectic consultations Monday over government formation in Haryana and Maharashtra with party leaders weighing various factors to decide the chief ministerial candidates in the two states.
In Haryana, the party has to select its chief ministerial nominee while the process is more complex in Maharashtra as it also has to decide on the support it will need to form the government.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah met Road and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari to discuss the options before the party in view of outside support extended by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra.
The party has to decide if it will go along with NCP's support or re-establish ties with the Shiv Sena with whom it had broken off before the assembly polls.
Some party leaders, including L.K. Advani and Subramanian Swamy, seem to be in favour of joining hands with the Shiv Sena.
Gadkari, a senior party leader from Maharashtra, has conveyed that he is not keen on returning to the state as chief minister.
The party has decided to send seniors Rajnath Singh and J.P. Nadda to Maharastra and M. Venkaiah Naidu and Dinesh Sharma to Haryana to facilitate the process of selection of leaders of the legislature party.
BJP's Maharashtra president Devendra Fadnavis is among those whose names are doing the rounds as the party's choice of chief minister.
In Haryana, the probables include Manohar Lal Khattar, Ram Bilas Sharma and Capt Abhimanyu.
The BJP emerged as the single-largest party in Maharashtra, winning 122 seats in the 288-member assembly.
In Haryana, the party won a majority for the first time on its own, wresting 47 of the 90 seats.
