Union Minister Ramdas Athawale on Saturday squarely blamed the Shiv Sena for the dramatic turn of events in Maharashtra and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has taught a lesson to its former ally in the state. Athawale also claimed that he knew a BJP government would come to power in the state.
The RPI chief urged the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar and his daughter and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule to join the Union Cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and help strengthen the country and the NDA government with their experience and knowledge.
“Sharad Pawar, too, should consider revising his stance and joining the NDA. He may get some good portfolio at the Centre,” Athawale said when asked about the difficulty the NCP faction headed by Ajit Pawar might face in engineering a split before the floor test on November 30.
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Athawale said Pawar should also consider backing his rebellious nephew Ajit Pawar, who was sworn in as the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra.
Athawale reminded the Sena that last week Home Minister Amit Shah had said “don’t worry, everything will be fine” and that the BJP would form the government when he had discussed the Maharashtra situation with him.
“I told Amit bhai that if he mediates then a way can be found out to which he (Amit Shah) replied ‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine. The BJP and the Shiv Sena would come together to form government’,” Athawale was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The senior Pawar, however, maintained that he did not endorse the decision taken by Ajit Pawar and it was his personal decision, not of the party.
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The dramatic developments in Maharashtra came days after PM Modi’s shout-out for Sharad Pawar’s party in Parliament, at a time the NCP was engrossed in all-out efforts to form a non-BJP coalition in Maharashtra. Pawar had recently met PM Modi in Delhi, creating ripples in political circles.
The PM had also heaped praise on the NCP while speaking in Rajya Sabha on the occasion of the Upper House’s 250th session.
In Maharashtra Assembly election, the BJP and the Shiv Sena had entered into an alliance and the two parties secured a comfortable majority by winning 105 and 56 seats respectively. On the other hand, pre-poll allies the Congress and the NCP won 44 and 54 seats respectively.
However, Maharashtra plunged into a political crisis when no party or alliance could form a government even 18 days after the declaration of the Assembly poll results. The President’s rule was imposed in the state on November 12.