In a political upset of sorts, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar switched sides to become the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, joining the one-year-old Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government while putting opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in disarray.
Following Sunday's drama, Maharashtra now has a Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP alliance.
The senior Pawar—who had mentored Ajit for decades—has not endorsed the rebellion by his nephew and vowed to fight back.
The development takes place on the eve of Guru Purnima.
The junior Pawar also staked claim over the party by saying that it would contest the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls with the NCP’s ‘watch’ election symbol by forging a pre-poll alliance with BJP and its partners.
The 63-year-old quit as Leader of Opposition on Friday, convened a meeting for Sunday, during which he met his 40-plus supporting NCP MLAs out of a total of 54, and drove to Raj Bhavan with close Pawar-aide and national working president Praful Patel.
Simultaneously, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis joined him and together they met Governor Ramesh Bais.
Thereafter, Pawar was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister while eight others joined as Cabinet ministers—Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse-Patil, Hasan Mushrif, Dhananjay Munde, Dharmaraobaba Atram, Aditi Tatkare, Sanjay Bansode, and Anil Patil.
Several of them and their immediate relatives are under the scanner of ED or CBI or both vis-a-vis their business transactions.
Soon after joining the government, Ajit hailed the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Modi is taking India forward ... we have been seeing his leadership over the last nine years …he is also popular in other countries and you can make out from the reception and welcome that he gets ... Everyone appreciates his leadership. We will fight the upcoming Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections with the BJP and that is why we have taken this decision,” he said.
Asked about how many MLAs and MPs are with him and whether he has support of the senior Pawar, Ajir said: “We have joined as a party ... all are with us … we have blessings of our leaders ... and this includes everyone. You will wait and see. We are the NCP. We will fight elections with the NCP symbol. There is no reason to worry … we will run the NCP efficiently, strengthen it further.” However, he said that there was no point in getting into numbers.
Meanwhile, to a barrage of questions, Chhagan Bhujbal said: “We have supported this government as NCP, we have not formed a separate party.”
However, he added that Ajit had said that Modi would become PM again in 2024. "You have to think positively. People’s problems must be solved. We should take the help of the government, we should help the government, we will try to solve the problems of the people,” Bhujbal said.