AMN
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has said that Ajit Pawar’s decision to support the BJP to form the Maharashtra Government is his personal decision and not that NCP.
“Ajit Pawar’s decision to support the BJP to form the Maharashtra Government is his personal decision and not that of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). We place on record that we do not support or endorse this decision of his” twitted Pawar.
Hours after BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis took oath as Chief Minister in the early hours of Saturday, with Ajit Pawar as his deputy, Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule put up a cryptic WhatsApp status that pointed at a major rift within the Pawar family and the NCP.
The status read, “Party and family split”, and was put up soon after the BJP turned its tables on rivals with a faction of NCP breaking away under Ajit Pawar — Sule’s cousin and Sharad Pawar’s nephew.
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Saturday, 23 November called the oath taking of Devendra Fadnavis and NCP’s Ajit Pawar a ‘theft’ and an insult of the people of Maharashtra and said that Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray will meet to discuss the development.
In a surprising move, BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis took oath as the chief minister of Maharashtra, while NCP’s Ajit Pawar took oath as the deputy CM of the state.
This comes after the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress ‘alliance’ announced Uddhav Thackeray for the post of CM on Friday.
Minutes after the oath-taking, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted congratulating Fadnavis and Pawar
Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar both said that the state needed a stable government and not a ‘khichdi’
The BJP won 105 seats, while the Shiv Sena won 56 seats in the Assembly elections. Opposition Congress won 44 seats, while the NCP won in 54 constituencies
‘Mockery of Constitution’: Digvijay Singh
Senior Congress leader Digvijay singh called the political developments in Maharashtra a “mockery of the Constitution.”
“This is making a mockery of the constitution, BJP did the same in Goa, Meghalaya and other states. No MLA of the NCP will support this, Ajit Pawar has gone with them alone,” he said.