New Delhi: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis resigned Tuesday afternoon, hours after the Supreme Court issued directions for a floor test to be conducted in the state assembly Wednesday.
This paves the way for the installation of a Nationalist Congress Party-Congress-Shiv Sena government that is likely to be headed by Uddhav Thackeray. Fadnavis’ resignation comes as a huge blow and embarrassment to Modi-Shah’s BJP that had engineered an overnight coup in the NCP to rope in Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit and form the government early Saturday with Fadnavis as CM and Ajit as his deputy.
Ajit resigned about an hour before Fadnavis on Tuesday, a day after his uncle oversaw the parading of 158 MLAs at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Mumbai. With Ajit loyalists in the NCP deserting him to join his uncle at the Grand Hyatt, the BJP was left with its 105 MLAs in the 288-member state assembly, forcing Fadnavis to put in his papers instead of facing further embarrassment in the floor test.
Fadnavis told reporters that he did not have a majority after Ajit had resigned. He said he hoped the Sena-NCP-Congress alliance would provide a stable government but added that it would be troubled by its own weight.
The fast-paced developments in Maharashtra came as a reminder of similar events in Karnataka in May 2018 when the BJP, which had emerged as the single largest party in the assembly elections, had got B.S. Yediyurappa installed as the chief minister, hoping to engineer defections in the rival camp to cobble up the requisite numbers.
Yediyurappa had to resign within two days as the Supreme Court directed the state governor to hold a floor test in 24 hours and the BJP couldn’t split the opposition. Yediyurappa, however, made a comeback as chief minister in July this year after 17 MLAs from the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) defected.
The BJP, however, could be hoping to repeat Karnataka in Maharashtra as the NCP-Congress-Shiv Sena is beset with ideological and political contradictions.
The Congress had initially dithered over joining hands with what it called a communal party, the Sena. The Congress, however, relented later to keep the BJP out of power in Maharashtra, the most industrialised state in India and also home to its financial capital.
Although the three parties have drawn up a common minimum programme and arrived at an agreement over the distribution of ministries, the new government is likely to be constantly confronted with a conflict of interests. Each of them is likely to use their stint in power to expand their political turf at the other’s cost, which would keep putative CM Uddhav Thackeray on tenterhooks.
Also read: Full text of Supreme Court order on Maharashtra floor test
Dirty power savvy politics, what else?
The biggest losers in the entire power savvy melodrama are the hapless voters, whose mandate has been grossly violated by this self-centered leadership of the Sjiv Sena, Congress and the NCP, which was extremely desperate to ascend to the seat of power here. What else could explain their coming together despite their vast ideological differences? An old saying very famously says: There are no permanent friends or foes in politics. Addedly, while the necessity is said to be the mother of all inventions but political necessity has become the ‘super mother’ of all unholy and unethical combinations in the present era. One just shudders to imagine whether voters should henceforth take the trouble of going to vote at all (as per their own choices) more so when their votes may at any time be grossly misused for some ulterior motives by our political masters and that too in the name of people itself. Jai Maharashtra!
Earlier BJP’s leadership had failed to understand the ambitions of Shiv Sena leaders. Now it has failed to understand the abilities of Ajit Pawar to bear the pressure from family. Something is seriously missing in BJP’s leadership.
Glad you finally reached there. Der aaye durust aaye.
But start crying for India: BJP’s replacement is the Congress, that though may be better on the secularism scale, but for handling the economic crisis is hardly better.
The people of Maharashtra could certainly have been spared of all this undue misery, BJP ought to introspect.
Wait for the next round after Jharkhand elections. This state too is going to throw up a hung assembly. Let’s what game happens then?
The Office of the President and the Governor have both been demeaned. Who is responsible ?
What about the Supreme Court? It should have asked for a show of strength on Sunday itself.
Chaal, charitra aur chehra!
Vinashkale viprit buddhi.
BJP has played all its cards (Kashmir, Triple Talaq, Ayodhya). It’s left with nothing now. It was always intellectually bankrupt.
It’s India’s tragedy that the Congress sans MMS will be hardly better. Rahul Gandhi is better off settling in Europe than learning on the job of how to run a hopelessly complex country like India. That Sonia and the Congress should even think of him ss PM is frightening.
India is caught between a rock and a hard place.
What a sad, albeit correct assessment. It is time again for some churn in Indian politics. Only genuine activism led politics can pave the way for better society. There was time when Arvind Kejriwal became THE HOPE (my hope)…middle class, educated, meritorious!!!! Are we left with any alternatives?
Sorry, the comment above is a duplicate comment that was intended for our friend ak. dev above.
You are right: the new hope on the horizon is the AAP party. But maybe regional parties are the answer. Kamal Haasan?
India’s had worse crises before. All said, Indira Gandhi’s Emergency was worse. And India came out of it stronger.
What happens now to the cases that were withdrawn by state agencies on Ajit Pawar.
This should raise few questions within BJP. It one thing that the party was not able to form government due to disagreement with its partner Shiv Sena. However, thereafter was there any need to enact the puerile political drama of forming a government with Ajit Pawar, who is not a very reliable politician. The party has to introspect. The sordid episode has dented the party’s image. I think that this is a huge set back to BJP, who is now perceived as a party having expertise in Machiavellian tricks of deception and conspiracies. A rethink is necessary.
There was no need for a brazen drama in the first place. Shameful politics…on both sides. Kuch to junta ka bhi socho? The same broken roads, pathetic drainage and polluted air!!!
This model of running the state with a few trusted bureaucrats – who will now get fresh postings – does not work. There was a lot of slick PR. A fabled War Room. Not reflected on the ground.