Rajya Sabha seat changed, Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut writes to Venkaiah Naidu

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday wrote to Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu following the reallocation of his seat to the back row of the Upper House. 

In the letter, he stated that the change in his seating position is related to the ongoing political tussle between Shiv Sena and the BJP over government formation in Maharashtra.

"I was astonished to know that my seating position in the Rajya Sabha chamber has been changed from 3rd row to 5th row. It is correlated to the tussle in government formation in Maharashtra state," Raut stated in the letter.  

"I fail to understand the reason for this unwarranted step of reallocation of seats since there is no formal announcement about removal from NDA alliance," Raut added.

Shiv Sena and BJP contested the recently-held assembly elections together but failed to reach an agreement for government formation. The Shiv Sena's demand of 50-50 government formula, asking for the chief minister's post of two and half years was not accepted by the BJP.

After the bitter fallout between the two parties, Shiv Sena pulled out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance with the lone minister resigning from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet. The party's MPs were allotted seats in the opposition benches in the winter session of the parliament. 

After BJP failed to stake claim to form the government, the Shiv Sena is engaged in talks NCP and Congress for an alliance government. 

President's rule was imposed on Maharashtra after no party was able to form the government, 20 days after assembly election results which were declared on October 24.