Apart from other party leaders, BJP's Devendra Fadnavis and NCP's Sharad Pawar also paid rich tributes to the Shiv Sena founder earlier in the day.
Maharashtra came under President's Rule after the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP indicated they were not willing to form a government.
Top leadership of NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena is in constant huddle to explore the possibilities, still a concrete roadmap seems elusive. NCP has time till 8:30 PM today to give the letters of support to Governor.
BJP, which emerged as the single-largest party in Maharashtra assembly polls with 105 seats, declined to form the government following differences with Shiv Sena on sharing power. The majority mark in the 288-member Maharashtra assembly is 145.
The Lilavati Hospital has confirmed Raut's admission. However, there are contradictory claims about the reason behind his hospitalisation
Shiv Sena MLAs sign document in support of party for government formation in Maharashtra, Sanjay Raut arrives at Matoshree
NCP has 54 MLAs while its alliance partner Congress has 44. If Shiv Sena, which had 56 legislators, gets the support of NCP and Congress, it will easily cross the majority mark of 145 in 288-member Maharashtra Assembly.
Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Saturday invited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- the single-largest party -- "to indicate the willingness and ability of his party to form the government in Maharashtra".
Although, Raut did not confirm whether Aaditya Thackeray or Eknath Shinde will be the party's chief ministerial candidate but added, "the party chief (Uddhav Thackeray) is capable of taking this decision."
Even after getting the required numbers to form the government, there has been a delay in cobbling up a coalition as Shiv Sena has insisted that the two parties had a '50-50' power-sharing agreement before the elections.
