Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting of NCP legislators in a posh hotel in Mumbai’s Powai area on Sunday in a show of unity, senior leaders of the parties said.
Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray both addressed the NCP’s members of legislative assembly (MLAs) at the Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel in a meeting that lasted one and a half hours.
“Do not worry. This relationship will go long, our alliance will go a long way,” the Sena boss was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Sena leaders Subhash Desai and Sanjay Raut accompanied their boss. As did Aaditya Thackeray, Uddhav’s son and the newly-elected MLA from Worli. Eknath Shinde was already at the five-star hotel.
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Uddhav Thackeray had left his home, Matoshree, earlier in the afternoon to drop in on the legislators of his own party as well as those of the NCP and Congress tucked away in different hotels in Mumbai.
Thackeray is later expected to go to another posh JW Marriott Hotel near the airport to interact with Congress MLAs. He could also go to The Lalit in Andheri East to meet his own party’s MLAs.
The NCP, Shiv Sena and the Congress have all moved their legislators to different luxury hotels in Mumbai, amid the high political drama in Maharashtra and threat of poaching of their MLAs.
In a stunning political move, the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday took an oath as the chief minister of Maharashtra, where the political scene has been in flux since the state poll results were announced on October 24.
The NCP had won 54 seats in the October 21 assembly election, Sena 56 and the Congress at 44 against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) 105 seats. Independents and smaller parties won 29 seats.
{{/usCountry}}The NCP had won 54 seats in the October 21 assembly election, Sena 56 and the Congress at 44 against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) 105 seats. Independents and smaller parties won 29 seats.
{{/usCountry}}Numbers are crucial at this point of time after the three-party alliance approached the Supreme Court challenging Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari’s decision to invite Devendra Fadnavis to form the state government in the early hours of Saturday. Fadnavis staked the claim to power late on Friday with the support of Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar.
Ajit Pawar had joined hands with the BJP, saying that all the 54 MLAs of the NCP are with him. His uncle has since said Ajit’s decision to ally with the BJP is his personal step and NCP has nothing to do with him.
The top court has now ordered the Centre to produce Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s letter to Devendra Fadnavis to form a government in the state at 10:30am on Monday.
A three-judge bench of the court also asked the central government to produce the letters of support by legislators submitted by Fadvavis to the governor.
The Sena, NCP and Congress and the BJP have said they are confident of proving their numbers in a floor test.
The Congress has said its legislators were earlier supposed to leave for Jaipur but later decided to stay in Mumbai in view of the fast-paced political developments in the state capital.
Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were sworn in by Governor Koshyari at a hush-hush ceremony at Raj Bhavan, a decision slammed by the three parties.
The BJP and the Sena, which fought the last month’s assembly polls in an alliance, secured a comfortable majority. The Sena, however, severed its three-decade-long association with the BJP after a clash over the issue of the chief minister’s post.
The BJP’s step on Saturday has been variously criticised as the murder of democracy, the day as “Black Saturday” and Ajit Pawar’s decision to jump ship as “backstabbing”.