Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar has been sworn in as deputy chief minister of Maharashtra. Pawar, who is believed to have the support of a considerable number of NCP MLAs, reached the Raj Bhawan in Mumbai Sunday afternoon. This was the fifth time since that Ajit Pawar was administered the oath of deputy chief minister.
Eight NCP MLAs were also sworn in as ministers in Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s cabinet including Chhagan Bhujbal, Dhananjay Munde and Dilip Walse Patil.
An NCP MLA told ThePrint on condition of anonymity that the party’s breakaway faction had not discussed the move with party chief Sharad Pawar as of yet. “Ajit Pawar is our leader. We go where he goes. Pawar saheb (Sharad Pawar) is sitting in Pune,” the MLA added.
महाराष्ट्रातील जनतेची इच्छा, राष्ट्रवादी काँग्रेस पक्षातील सहकाऱ्यांचा पाठिंबा, विश्वासाच्या बळावर आज राज्याचा उपमुख्यमंत्री म्हणून पद व गोपनीयतेची शपथ घेतली. माझ्या या पदाचा उपयोग जनतेच्या कल्याणासाठी, महाराष्ट्राच्या विकासासाठी होईल असा विश्वास देतो. pic.twitter.com/mvZ2oh7w6u
— Ajit Pawar (@AjitPawarSpeaks) July 2, 2023
ThePrint reached Sharad Pawar for comment but calls to the NCP chief went unanswered.
Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut, however, took to Twitter to say that he spoke to Sharad Pawar about the developments and was told: “We will rebuild everything with Uddhav Thackeray and we have support of the people.”
महाराष्ट्राच्या राजकारणाचे साफ मातेरे करण्याचां विडा काही लोकांनी उचलला आहे.त्यांना त्यांच्या मार्गाने जाऊ द्या.
माझे आताच श्री.शरद पवार यांच्याशी बोलणे झाले.ते म्हणाले" मी खंबीर आहे.लोकांचा पाठिंबा आपल्याला आहे. उद्धव ठाकरें सह पुन्हा सर्व नव्याने उभे करू.". होय,जनता हे खेळ फार… pic.twitter.com/fsBbIZGoFE
— Sanjay Raut (@rautsanjay61) July 2, 2023
Referring to the decision of NCP legislators including Ajit Pawar to join the Shinde-Fadnavis government in Maharashtra, Raut said the “people will not tolerate this game for long”.
During the oath-taking ceremony, Maharashtra minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sudhir Mungantiwar claimed that “more than 40 NCP MLAs” were extending support to the Shiv Sena-BJP government.
Speaking to the media later, CM Eknath Shinde said the “double-engine government has now become a triple-engine government”.
“For the development of Maharashtra, I welcome Ajit Pawar and his leaders. Ajit Pawar’s experience will help strengthen Maharashtra,” said Shinde, who has been accused of engineering a split in the Shiv Sena in June last year that led to the collapse of the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance comprising the Sena, NCP and the Congress.
Also Read: Daughter, nephew & ‘saheb’ — how generations of Pawars have dominated Maharashtra politics
What preceded Ajit Pawar-led split
On Sunday morning, Ajit Pawar held meetings with NCP MLAs at his residence. At a press conference later in the day, Sharad Pawar brushed aside questions by calling it a ‘routine’ meeting, adding that he has also convened a strategy meeting on 6 July.
NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar had last month appointed his daughter and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule, along with Rajya Sabha MP Praful Patel, as the party’s working presidents.
The move led to speculation that Pawar, a former Union minister and chief minister of Maharashtra, had settled the debate over who out of daughter Supriya and nephew Ajit would take over the reins of the party after him.
This was followed by Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis’s remarks last week hinting at a possible expansion of the state cabinet.
Following the 2019 assembly elections, while the erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, the NCP, and the Congress tried to cobble together an alliance to stake claim to form the government, Ajit Pawar had, in a similar fashion, extended support to the Fadnavis-led BJP. At a hurried oath-taking ceremony, he was sworn in as the deputy chief minister.
However, his tenure lasted only a few days as Fadnavis failed to prove his numbers. Ajit meanwhile, returned to the NCP, was ‘forgiven’ and even went on to become the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the assembly — the post he said last week he didn’t want anymore.
The rift between Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit resurfaced many times over the last few years.
On 2 May this year, Sharad Pawar announced his resignation as party chief at an NCP event — a decision openly endorsed only by Ajit. Within days, however, the senior Pawar took a U-turn as the committee of party members formed by him to chart a future course of action passed a resolution rejecting his resignation and asking him to reconsider.
“I can’t disrespect your sentiments. Due to your love, I am respecting the demand that was made to me to withdraw my resignation and the resolution that was passed by senior NCP leaders. I withdraw my decision to step down as the national president of Nationalist Congress Party,” he said at a press conference in Mumbai which wasn’t attended by Ajit.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
Also Read: Shrunken national footprint, politics ‘too cultured’, overdependence on Sharad Pawar — 24 yrs of NCP