The Supreme Court will hear today the plea of the Shiv Sena against Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari's refusal to grant more time to the party to submit the required letters of support from the Congress and the NCP to form the next government. The Shiv Sena has termed the governor's Monday decision as unconstitutional, unreasonable and mala fide. Ahead of the hearing, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party hit out at the BJP, saying “though horse trading hasn't yet begun in Maharashtra, President’s Rule is a step in that direction”. In an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, the Sena said the Governor was “expected to show some independent thinking”.

“Let them criticise the Shiv Sena about the direction in which we are going. What happened when they went with Mehbooba [Mufti] and Nitish [Kumar]? We have digested the poison, like Bhagwan Shankar 'Neelkanth'. If they would have lived by their promise, we wouldn't have taken this step. But they would like to sit in opposition instead of giving us our due,” the Sena said.

'Agneepath' three times

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday tweeted the word 'agneepath' three times, apparently to indicate difficult path ahead for his party in its efforts to form government in Maharashtra with the Congress and NCP, its political rivals till recently.​

Raut, who on Tuesday quoted poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan to reaffirm his party's resolve to succeed and not give up, on Wednesday tweeted: "Agneepath, agneepath, agneepath..."(path of fire), without elaborating.

A counterpoint was presented by Maharashtra Congress leaders like Sushil Kumar Shinde, Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat, who believed it was wiser, under the circumstances, to back the Shiv Sena and keep the BJP out.

Some in that meeting believed the Congress president was coming around.

Around 5 pm on Monday, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in his first ever call to Sonia Gandhi, made a formal request for support. The Congress president promised to get back to him after her consultations.

Fadnavis is now Maharashtra’s sevak

Overnight, Devendra Fadnavis has gone from being Maharashtra’s chief minister to Maharashtra’s Sevak – going by his changed twitter bio.

This is the second time he has made changes to his twitter handle and bio this year. Then CM Fadnavis had changed it from @Dev_Fadnavis to “Chowkidar Devendra Fadnavis” on March 17, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi added “chowkidar” to his Twitter handle profile and asked people to take the #MainBhiChowkidar pledge against corruption.

Fadnavis opting to call himself ‘sevak’ also resonates with Prime Minister Modi’s frequent assertions that he was the ‘Pradhan Sevak’ and not the ‘Pradhan Mantri’.