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It was on the 2nd of July that Ajit Pawar broke away from his uncle Sharad Pawar’s party and decided to join the BJP and Shinde backed Shiv sena alliance. Ajit Pawar as usual was declared the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, a position that has been already occupied by none other than Devandra Fadnavis the former chief minister of Maharashtra. Such a juggling of power is not unexpected in Indian Politics but what Maharashtra has witnessed in the last year and half has been nothing short of extraordinary. As Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers are getting replaced faster than Indian crickets opening pairs. So, what led to such juggling of power and who ultimately comes out on top of such a complicated scenario.
All of this started when Uddhav Thackeray broke away from the BJP and joined the MVA alliance with Sharad Pawar led NCP and the Congress Party. BJP had been gutted by such a crude betrayal by Uddhav Thackeray and while they were come out of this betrayal they were also hell bent making sure on how to get back to Uddhav Thackeray.
And all of BJP’s tactics and needs came to fruition as Eknath Shinde broke away from the Shiv Sena and formed his own faction of Shiv Sena.
Devandra Fadnavis who was the prime candidate for the Chief Ministers post, in a shock move by the high command of the BJP, was named the Deputy Chief-Minister and Eknath Shinde was made the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
And now, Ajit Pawar has taken away 9 out of the 53 MLAs that NCP has and according to unofficial sources he has the support of 27 MLAs. The NCP MLAs who joined the government are Hasan Mushrif, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dhananjay Munde, Aditi Tatkare, Anil Patil, Sanjay Vansode, Dharamrao Baba and Dilip Walse Patil.
What came as an absolute shocker was the fact that individuals such as Praful Patel and Chhagan Bhujbal has joined the BJP government as they both have been known as close aide of Sharad Pawar for more than two decades.
And in one of the most historic moments in Indian as well as Maharashtra politics was the fact that, there will be two Deputy Chief Ministers in Maharashtra with Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit pawar.
Also by embracing NCP into its own coalition BJP has once again showed how its ready to compromise anything in order to share power. As they have realised that it’s better to compromise and stay in power rather than stick to its ideologies and be in opposition.
As it is the same BJP government that had been criticizing the current NCP regimen for its dynastic politics.
BJP’s compromise in order to stay in power would be regarded as one of the key masterstrokes in the history of modern politics and might as well be a roadmap for future political events.
As for Ajit Pawar, he might be having great and fond memories of how in 2019 when he had joined hands with the BJP and became the Deputy Chief Minister in an early morning Coup, he was given a clean chit in the irrigation scam by the Anti-Corruption bureau in his mere three days tenure.
For the coming days it would be really interesting to see how all of these power juggling and compromise between these three parties will play out especially with Eknath Shinde’s disqualification at play. But one thing is for sure, democracy might be the best option to choose governments and run countries, but it is one of the most imperfect, messy systems ever created.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.