Delay in staking claim to form govt led to crisis in Maharashtra, say Cong-NCP leaders

The “endless discussions” between the three parties gave ample time to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to convince NCP leader Ajit Pawar to switch sides, the leaders believe.

Several leaders from the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are of the opinion that the delay on the part of their top leaders in working out a power-sharing deal with the Shiv Sena and staking claim to form the government in the state has led to the current political crisis.

Congress leader Ashok Chavan at JW Marriott hotel in Andheri where the party MLAs are lodged. (HT Photo)

The “endless discussions” between the three parties gave ample time to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to convince NCP leader Ajit Pawar to switch sides, the leaders believe. Many of these leaders also feel that NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s “tactics” during the power-sharing talks between the three parties delayed the entire procedure for them.

Before BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were sworn in as the chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively on Saturday morning, the talks between the Sena, NCP and Congress had reached the last lap and the parties were expected to stake the claim to form the government at any time.

“Though official talks between the Congress and the Sena began on November 11, the two parties were in touch from the first week of November, after Sharad Pawar had met Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi to discuss the formation of an alternative government. Besides, the state leaders had also held meetings with the top leadership of the Congress and NCP several times. This means that the nitty-gritties of power sharing between three parties should have been finalised much earlier,” said a state Congress leader.

Another Congress leader said that the delay was owing to the suspicious moves made by Sharad Pawar and the lack of sense of trust between the leaders of the two parties. The initial time taken by the Congress leadership was owing to the bitter experience the party had with the NCP in the past.

“More recently, in 2014, the NCP had extended support to the BJP in the state even before the complete results were out. There are many such instances of distrust between the two parties,” said the leader.

The leader also cited the meeting between Pawar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 20.

“The Congress then expedited the entire process of government formation by holding meetings between the three parties because we did not want any sabotage taking place at the time when talks were at the final stage,” he said.

Sonia Gandhi’s political advisor, Ahmed Patel, however, felt that there was no delay by the Congress. “Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray sought the support by calling up Soniaji on November 11, after which the party leadership swung into action. We had rounds of meetings to materialise the formation of the government,” he said during a press briefing on Saturday.

An NCP leader believes that the possibility of Ajit Pawar joining hands with the BJP had always existed and pre-empting the claim would probably not have made any difference to his plans. “Ajit Pawar would have defected even if the three parties had staked a claim. But then having staked the claim would have given an edge to these three parties over the Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar government, as was argued today in the Supreme Court,” the NCP leader said.

Political analyst Heman Desai said that had the Sena-NCP-Congress alliance been formed, it would have easily been able to buy time for at least four-five days.

“Patel indirectly blamed the NCP and Pawar for the delay by saying that his party started talks immediately after the proposal was moved. Ajit Pawar’s move had been suspicious for over the past few months, beginning with his resignation as the Assembly member a few days ahead of the elections. He had a growing sense of distrust towards his uncle Sharad Pawar over the past few years. I doubt that even if the three parties would have met the Governor to stake a claim earlier, it would have made a big difference,” he said.