No decision yet on Anant Geete's continuation in Cabinet: Rajnath Singh

No decision has been taken on whether or not Heavy Industries Minister Anant Geete will continue in the Union Cabinet after his party Shiv Sena snapped ties with BJP, Home Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh said on Sunday. "The party has to take a decision. We have not had any discussions about him. The issue has not come into our consideration yet," he told PTI here. Geete is the only minister from Shiv Sena in the NDA cabinet.

The Home Minister said that the collapse of BJP's alliance with Sena ahead of Maharashtra Assembly elections was "very unfortunate". "It's very unfortunate. We discussed it for long but, unfortunately, it (the talks) did not work out," he said. Singh, however, exuded confidence that BJP would win majority in Maharashtra despite the parting of ways with Sena.
"We will contest the elections with full confidence and get the majority," he said.

Not only in Maharashtra, BJP will get absolute majority in Haryana as well, Singh claimed. Both Maharashtra and Haryana are headed for Assembly polls on October 15. "We will get a clear majority in both states," he said. Asked whether there was a possibility of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari being made the Chief Minister of Maharashtra if BJP wins absolute majority in the state, Singh said that the party's Central Parliamentary Board would take a decision as to who would head the government in such a scenario.