MUMBAI: A thriller straight out of the playbook of guerrilla warfare was played out in Mumbai early Saturday morning when, contrary to expectations that Uddhav Thackeray would take up the chief ministers post soon as Shiv Sena-Congress-NCP coalition talks were close to completion, BJPs Devendra Fadnavis was, at 8am, sworn in as Maharashtra chief minister for the second time running, with NCPs Ajit Pawar as his deputy.
Events unfolded at breathtaking speed post-midnight when Ajit Pawar decided to bolt the NCP stables. Governor B S Koshyari sent a communication to the Centre recommending lifting of Presidents rule. By the crack of dawn, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had used his special powers to end Central rule without calling a meeting of the Union Cabinet. Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were sworn in at the governors residence, with just a few netas, apart from officials, in attendance.
The coup, which came after NCP and Congress got stalemated over who should bag the post of Speaker in the three-party coalition being planned, caught NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray, the “CM-in-waiting,” by complete surprise.
Recovering from the shock inflicted by his nephew, Sharad Pawar said the decision to go with BJP was nephew Ajits own and not that of his party and after scrambling by the Sena, NCP and Congress to secure their flock, the Maha Vikas Aghadi of the three parties had pushed back by late evening. In a retaliatory strike, NCP removed Ajit Pawar as its legislature party leader, replacing him with Jayant Patil at a meeting attended by 48 of the partys 54 MLAs.
The components of the Aghadi filed a joint petition in in the Supreme Court terming as “illegal” Maharashtra governor Koshyaris move to invite the Fadnavis-led BJP to form government. The petition, which also demanded an immediate composite floor test where MLAs would be asked to vote either for Uddhav Thackeray or Devendra Fadnavis to decide which coalition forms the next government, will be heard by the apex court at 11.30am today.
If the SC move does not work out, the Aghadi has plans to parade all its legislators before the President to establish that the Fadnavis government does not have a majority.
Even as it moved to nip the rebellion by warning that the “defectors” would be disqualified and defeated in the resultant by-elections, NCP tried the persuasion track to bring the prodigal nephew home. By late Saturday evening, three NCP leaders —Sunil Tatkare, Hasan Mushrif and Dilip Walse Patil— met Ajit Pawar at his uncle Srinivas Pawars Napean Sea Road residence where he had been ensconced after the swearing-in and tried to persuade him to return to the party fold. However, there was no response from Ajit, sources said.
Though the NCP said 49 of its MLAs were present at its late evening meeting called at Y B Chavan Centre at Nariman Point for removal of Ajit Pawar as legislature party chief and five, including Ajit, were “not in touch with the party”, the numbers remained unclear at the time of going to press as Ajit did not speak on the subject later in the day.Also, three NCP MLAs were shepherded into the NCP legislature meeting called by Pawar senior either by NCP or Sena leaders—one of them from the airport.
To confuse matters, Dhananjay Munde — whose official residence near Mantralaya was the centre of all the early-morning activity as that was where Ajits loyalist MLAs were told to gather — made a surprise entry at the meeting of the NCP legislature party to decide the course of action against Ajit.
BJP justified its move and the governors action, saying that Koshyari had acted on the basis of a letter from NCP declaring Ajit Pawar to be the leader of the NCP legislature party and by saying that the return of Fadnavis as CM was in harmony with the mandate of the election, where BJP along with Sena had won a clean majority. Its leaders also termed Ajit Pawars switchover a punishment to Sena for “betraying” the popular opinion. “They contested and won election with BJPs support and on the strength of the popularity of Narendra Modis appeal but have defected to the parties they fought against,” went the saffron refrain.
They agreed that Sharad Pawar would fight hard to stop the party from being taken over by his nephew but remained confident of Fadnavis surviving the floor test.
A total of 11 NCP MLAs were present at Raj Bhavan with Ajit Pawar for the swearing-in ceremony after Presidents Rule in the state was lifted at 5.47am on the basis of letters submitted by Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar to the governor. The letter submitted by Ajit Pawar had signatures of all 54 NCP MLAs. However, at a joint presser with UddhavRead More – Source
