MVA sorts out internal differences, boycotts assembly

MVA legislators held a mock assembly on the steps of the legislature, where they spoke about the attempt to suppress the voice of the opposition inside the house and outside it. NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad said that the Shinde-Fadnavis government had been targeting them by lodging fake cases

Nagpur After its failure to corner the Shinde-Fadnavis government in the first four days of the Winter Session, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) adopted an aggressive stand on Friday and boycotted the proceedings of the legislative assembly. Condemning the suspension of senior NCP leader Jayant Patil, members said it was “an attempt to suppress the voice of the opposition in the legislature”.

Nagpur, India - December 22, 2022: Maha Vikas Aghadi MLA Aaditya Thakreay with other MLAs protests against the Maharashtra Government demanding resignation of Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari on the fourth day of the Winter Session of Maharashtra State Assembly, at Vidhan Bhawan, in Nagpur, Thursday, December 22, 2022. (Photo by Sunny Shende/HT Photo) (HT PHOTO)

The decision to go full throttle at the government had its roots in the differences between the MVA’s three constituents. These differences surfaced again on Friday during a meeting held ahead of the beginning of the legislature proceedings. Several MLAs from the Shiv Sena (UBT), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress expressed their dismay about the coalition’s failure to adopt an aggressive stand against the ruling parties in the assembly when the opposition in the legislative council had so splendidly put the government on the backfoot.

The NCP was divided on the stand taken by leader of the opposition Ajit Pawar on the issue of Jayant Patil’s suspension. Pawar had apologised for the objectionable language used by Jayant Patil on Thursday, and several senior party leaders, who felt that he should have stood by Patil, were unhappy about this.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, while describing the opposition’s stand, said there was an attempt by the state government and the presiding officer to suppress democratic values. “The presiding officer was working to safeguard the interests of the government,” he said. “Ruling party MLAs trooping into the well and adjourning house proceedings was a never-seen-before scene for us. We were attempting to fight for the truth by raising some issues but were not allowed to.”

MVA legislators held a mock assembly on the steps of the legislature, where they spoke about the attempt to suppress the voice of the opposition inside the house and outside it. NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad said that the Shinde-Fadnavis government had been targeting them by lodging fake cases.

The NIT land scam once again surfaced in the legislature. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Thursday had alleged that the issue was deliberately raised by BJP members in the legislative council earlier to embarrass Eknath Shinde and his faction. While targeting both the BJP and Shinde, Raut said that BJP legislators Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Pravin Datke and Nago Ganar had raised a question on the scam in the legislature by asking a starred question and demanding an inquiry. Shinde, Raut pointed out, might have not known what was going on “behind the curtain”.

However, Bawankule claimed that he and the two other BJP members had raised the issue of another land scam of Nagpur in which a lot of Congress and NCP politicians were involved, including a couple of former Maharashtra ministers. “Raut is trying to play his “clever politics”— divide and rule—and instigating our friends (the Shinde faction) against us by involving prominent BJP leaders,” he said.

Datke, on his part, dubbed Raut a liar who always raised an outcry without knowing any issue. “The issue that was raised by us pertained to an illegal allotment of revenue and NIT land to several politicians and individuals in Nagpur by the then revenue and urban development ministers,” he said. “The land we were talking about is in North Nagpur while the high court petition was about land in South Nagpur.”