Fadnavis-Ajit govt had one benefit: Sharad Pawar

February 22, 2023 18:07

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday that the Bharatiya Janata Party's attempt to form a government with his nephew and NCP leader Ajit Pawar had one benefit as it ended the President's Rule in Maharashtra in 2019.

His remarks prompted Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to assert that the NCP chief should also explain why the President's Rule was imposed in the state in the first place after the 2019 assembly polls.

Addressing a press conference at Pimpri-Chinchwad, Sharad Pawar said that had the exercise not happened, the President's Rule would have continued in the state.

He was replying to a question about Fandavis's claim that the formation of the government with Ajit Pawar had the backing of the NCP chief.

"There was an attempt to form a government. One benefit of that exercise was that it helped to lift the President's Rule in Maharashtra and everyone has witnessed what happened after that," he.

Asked if he was aware of the formation of such a government and why Ajit Pawar is tight-lipped on the issue, the NCP chief wondered if there was a need to speak about it.

"I just said that had this kind of exercise not happened, would the President's Rule have been lifted? Had the President's Rule not been lifted, would Uddhav Thackeray have been sworn in as the chief minister?" he asked.

In one of the biggest political surprises in Maharashtra, then Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari had sworn in Fadnavis as chief minister and Ajit Pawar as deputy CM in an early morning ceremony on November 23, 2019.

But the government lasted just three days, after which Uddhav Thackeray was sworn in as chief minister with the backing of the NCP and Congress.

Asked if he was hinting that he was aware of the developments, the NCP chief quipped, "A person recently said that one person (Sharad Pawar) is responsible for anything that happens in Maharashtra."

Speaking on the Election Commission's decision to recognise the Eknath Shinde-led group as the real Shiv Sena, Pawar said differences are common in politics but it has never happened in the country that a party's name and symbol were "snatched away" by misusing power.

"When there was a split in the Congress, two entities named Congress (I) and Congress (S) emerged. I was the Congress (S) president and Indira Gandhi was the chief of Congress (I). That time, I had the right to use the Congress' name. In today's scenario, the party's name and its symbol have been given to others. Such a thing never happened in the history of India," said the veteran politician.

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