Maharashtra: Rashtriya Samaj Paksha wants a slice of cabinet pie

While the BJP seems to be in two minds over taking support from estranged ally Shiv Sena to form the government in Maharashtra, its ally Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP) has demanded its inclusion in the council of ministers.

RSP chief and dhangar (shepherd) community leader Mahadeo Jankar, who was one of the four smaller allies which decided to support the BJP after it split with the Sena, met BJP national president Amit Shah and the party's election in-charge for the state Om Mathur in Delhi on Monday. Jankar told dna that he had met Shah to seek "political partnership" for the RSP and the BJP's smaller allies in the soon to be formed government in Maharashtra and claimed that he was likely to get a cabinet berth.

Jankar, who lost to NCP chief and former Union minister Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule from the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency by around 70,000 votes, was accompanied by RSP leaders like the party's state president Balasaheb Nahata.

The RSP had fielded 13 candidates in the assembly polls but could notch up just one win — Rahul Kul from Daund in Pune. Kul is the son of former NCP legislators from the constituency Subhash and Ranjana Kul and had unsuccessfully contested the 2009 assembly elections as an NCP nominee but lost to independent Rameshappa Thorat.

Incidentally, the RSP is the only BJP ally to win an assembly seat with the rest like farmer leader and Lok Sabha MP Raju Shetti's Swabhimaani Paksha, Dalit leader and Rajya Sabha MP Ramdas Athavale's Republican Party of India (A) and Maratha leader Vinayak Mete's Shivasangram drawing a blank.