Ajit Pawar's sudden 180-degree turn is being seen as a case of schadenfreude, resulting from an unforeseen split along party and family faultlines.
Following Saturday's sudden development in the political scene of Maharashtra where Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)'s Ajit Pawar sided with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form a government, NCP chief Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule confirmed the fact that the party has split from within.
Supriya Sule, a senior NCP leader, uploaded a WhatsApp status shortly after the developments, which said, "Party and family split." Later, her office confirmed the statement as well.
NCP leader Ajit Pawar is the nephew of party chief Sharad Pawar. His sudden 180-degree turn is being seen as a case of schadenfreude, resulting from an unforeseen split along party and family faultlines. Political leaders have even gone so far as to call Ajit Pawar's act a 'backstab'.
In a sudden development, Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday took oath as Maharashtra Chief Minister for his second term and NCP's Ajit Pawar took oath as deputy chief minister. The oath was administered by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at Raj Bhawan.
After taking the oath, Devendra Fadnavis said, "People had given us a clear mandate but Shiv Sena tried to ally with other parties after results, as a result, President's rule was imposed. Maharashtra needed a stable government and not a 'khichdi' government."
Meanwhile, NCP's Ajit Pawar said, "From result day to this day no party was able to form the government, Maharashtra was facing many problems including farmer issues, so we decided to form a stable government."
Shiv Sena's leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday slammed Ajit Pawar's decision of aligning with BJP and forming government in Maharashtra. Hitting out at Ajit Pawar, Raut said: "Sharad Pawar saheb has nothing to do with this, Ajit Pawar has backstabbed the people of Maharashtra."
After weeks of uncertainty on government formation in Maharashtra, it seems that a breakthrough on the matter has finally been reached with this resolve. Ever since after Maharashtra results, reports were doing the rounds that there will be a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, however, the three parties were working on the common minimum programme but had not reached to any conclusion.
Reports were doing the rounds that Congress and NCP wanted Uddhav Thackeray to be the Chief Minister if Sena-NCP-Congress government was formed in the state, however, Saturday came as a surprise when Devendra Fadnavis and Aji Pawar took oath as Chief Minister and Deputy CM.
BJP and Shiv Sena fought the elections together and had a comfortable majority to form the government but the two parties didn't reach any consensus on the '50-50 formula' that led to the break-up of ties.
Shiv Sena has 56 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly, way below the half-way mark of 144, it needed both the NCP's 54 and Congress' 44 legislators to reach the magic number.
President's rule was imposed on Maharashtra after no party was able to form the government even 20 days after assembly election results which were declared on October 24.
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 "NCP leader and Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule signals the onset of party's decline")
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