Maharashtra: Can BJP outmaneuver Sharad Pawar in this game of thrones?

The NCP may have come in third in the recently concluded Maharashtra state assembly election, but party supremo and seasoned politician Sharad Pawar has played his cards so well, that he seems to have squarely come out on top of the pile.

Thanks to his surprise move of dispatching party leader Praful Patel to declare 'unconditional support' to the BJP soon after the results were announced, he single handedly ensured that a BJP - Shiv Sena reconciliation would not come as quickly or easily as political analysts would have thought. The subsequent relegation of Uddhav Thackeray's highly offended party to the opposition benches was in many ways directly Pawar's doing.

But after the highly contentious voice vote that was used to prove the BJP's majority on the floor of the house, which did not see a division of numbers, the NCP seems to be warning the BJP that it will not unconditionally support everything they do.