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Ajit Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party leader who almost grounded the Uddhav Thackeray-led alliance government in Maharashtra, reached his uncle and boss Sharad Pawar’s house hours before the Shiv Sena chief take oath as chief minister on Thursday evening.
Ajit Pawar’s visit comes soon after the Shiv Sena made it clear that the two ministers from the NCP quota who would take oath this evening would be Jayant Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal. Ajit Pawar isn’t on this list.
Ajit Pawar’s considerable number of supporters have been lobbying for the deputy chief minister’s chair for him, the post that he was expected to land before he sprung a surprise on his party and family on Saturday when he pledged support to a Devendra Fadnavis-led government.
Ajit, who was widely seen as the political heir to his 78-year-old uncle, had negotiated the deputy chief minister’s chair for himself in the Fadnavis government. But he ended up stepping down within 80 hours, much before he could even enter his office in the state secretariat.
By then, he had also lost the NCP legislature party chief’s post that went to Jayant Patil.
Patil was also widely considered to be Sharad Pawar’s top choice for the deputy chief minister’s post.
Ajit Pawar’s return to the party fold did raise the stability quotient of the coalition but it comes with its own set of complications. For one, restoring Ajit Pawar’s status would imply downgrading Jayant Patil so close to his elevation. Sharad Pawar also has to account for the political messaging that Ajit Pawar’s rehabilitation would entail within the coalition.
By the time Ajit Pawar emerged out of his uncle’s Silver Oaks house, he appeared to have reconciled to a delay in restoring his status within the party and the government.
“I am not upset. I was not upset yesterday. I am not upset today. And I will not be upset tomorrow,” Ajit Pawar said, after declaring that he wasn’t going to take oath today.
“I am going to attend the oath ceremony today as an MLA. Supriya (Sule) is also with me. We both will attend,” he said.
Ajit Pawar has been trying hard to bounce back in the party that his uncle had founded. When he addressed party legislators at the YB Chavan auditorium yesterday, Ajit Pawar made it a point to upload photographs with a caption: “Guided the newly-elected MLA’s at the @NCPspeaks meeting held in Y. B. Chavan Centre today.”
That he wasn’t going to take oath was something that senior NCP leader Sunil Tatkare had declared well before Ajit Pawar walked into his meeting with his uncle.
“We have been saying since yesterday that Sharad Pawar will decide about Ajit Pawar (whether he will get DCM post). There is no question of Ajit taking oath today, as names have been finalised already,” Tatkare told reporters.
But it implies that deputy chief minister’s post that went to the NCP in the power-sharing pact sealed on Wednesday was still up for grabs.
NCP leader Jayant Patil, one of the two ministers to take oath today, said: “I am going to take oath today as a minister. Who will be deputy chief minister has not been decided yet.”
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