New Delhi/Mumbai, Oct. 30: Chief minister-designate Vilasrao Deshmukh has been invited by Maharashtra governor Mohammad Fazal to form a government. He is likely to be sworn in on Monday.

Deshmukh drove straight to the Raj Bhavan tonight on returning to Mumbai from Delhi. He had emerged triumphant from the front gate of Sonia Gandhi?s 10 Janpath residence earlier this afternoon after getting her nod for heading the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition government.

Twenty-two months earlier the Maratha leader had slunk out of the Congress chief?s house after being replaced by Sushil Kumar Shinde. But today, Deshmukh emerged from Sonia?s residence with Shinde whom he has replaced this time around. He will no longer be haunted by the question that has dogged him since January 2003: ?Why was I removed as chief minister??

Deshmukh thanked Sonia for entrusting him the Maharashtra top job and reposing faith in his leadership last night. Even if he does not know why he was removed last year, the leader must have figured out why he has been chosen to head this Democratic Front government.

Deshmukh was elevated to the top job in 1999 to counter NCP chief Sharad Pawar and this time too, the Congress expects he will ensure that Marathas do not rally behind the Union agriculture minister?s party. The Congress yielded ground to its alliance partner in the Maratha strongholds of west Maharashtra and Marathwada during Assembly elections earlier this month.

But the chief minister-elect chose to underplay the Maratha factor. ?There has been a tradition in Maharashtra (that) the chief minister is never chosen on caste lines,? he said.

With Shinde by his side, Deshmukh could scarcely have said anything else. It was not easy for the Congress to remove its first Dalit chief minister in Maharashtra, especially as it partly acted under pressure from the Deshmukh-led Maratha lobby. The circumstances of Shinde?s ouster prompted the Congress to appoint him Andhra Pradesh governor immediately.