Sharad Pawar, the leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, has produced a list of cabinet positions and district guardian ministers as part of his strategy to establish a coalition government with the Bharatiya Janata Party after the 2019 Assembly elections, according to Maharashtra minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.
Mungantiwar said that Pawar abandoned the proposal at the last minute.
Devendra Fadnavis, the state’s deputy chief minister, reportedly claimed that Pawar was aware of BJP-NCP preparations to create a coalition government. Pawar had previously said that “certain things” were done to demonstrate how far the BJP would go to win power.
Following the 2019 Assembly elections, Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar of the NCP established a government, however it only lasted for 80 hours until Pawar returned to the Sharad Pawar-led party.
“Based on the track record of NCP leader Sharad Pawar, it is simple to believe the statements made by our leader Devendra Fadnavis on the inauguration in November 2019. According to our understanding, Pawar has even assigned duties to the district guardian ministers and selected who would serve as the ministers.
“Sharad Pawar has a well-established reputation. People used to describe his politics as gazing at one thing while aiming at another even before I joined politics. With Vasantdada Patil’s resignation as chief minister in 1978, Pawar took over as CM. He thereafter rejoined the Congress before leaving once again in 1999 (to establish the NCP),” Mungantiwar stated.
According to Mungantiwar, Pawar collaborated with the Congress and Shiv Sena to build the Maha Vikas Aghadi, and the BJP never imagined that its longtime partner Uddhav Thackeray would betray them.
He said that despite saying his party was rotting in its alliance with the BJP before to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Thackeray remained allied with the latter in preparation for the Assembly elections that same year.
The senior BJP official further said that while 29 of the party’s 44 MLAs believed the party must join forces with the Shiv Sena or else it will be destroyed, the Congress was undecided about doing so.
“This decision to ally with the Sena was rejected by all three of the senior leaders of the Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul, and Priyanka. He asserted that there was a lot of uncertainty.
