Mumbai: In a show of strength, leaders of the three parties — the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress — stood firm beside each other on Sunday. The troika was in the final stage of talks to form a government, when in a dramatic turn of events, NCP leader Ajit Pawar broke away from NCP with 11 legislators and joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday.
Eventually, Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the chief minister for the second consecutive time and Ajit Pawar was sworn as his deputy.
As a result, pandemonium broke out not only in political quarters but also in the media, and the three parties moved all their newly-elected MLAs to five-star resorts to prevent horse-trading.
Sources confirmed that as the Sena has a robust presence of trade unions in five-star hotels of the city, it helped its counterparts NCP and Congress with last-minute bookings.
On Sunday afternoon, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray met at the Powai resort, where NCP MLAs are stationed. The party chiefs along with other senior leaders, held an hour-long close-door parleys with the stationed MLAs. Uddhav and Pawar were also joined by Sena MP Sanjay Raut, Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray and NCP MP Supriya Sule.
The leaders assured the MLAs that a Sena-NCP-Congress coalition government will be formed, as the three parties were confident of defeating the BJP on the floor of the House.
Party insiders said that the purpose of their meeting was to boost the morale of their legislators and party workers whose confidence took a back-seat after the sudden turnaround of events on Saturday.
“Uddhavji assured the MLAs that the alliance will go a long way, as the Sena-Congress-NCP relationship is only being strengthened in this time of trials,” informed a Sena member, present during the closed-door meeting.
Sharad Pawar, who has battled to recover his errant flock, after Ajit Pawar’s breakaway also encouraged the party workers to not lose hope and have patience.
After the meeting Aaditya posted photographs of the meeting, captioning it as “Mahastrength”.
Soon after the meeting, NCP MP Supriya Sule also posted a picture on her Twitter handle with Sena MP and spokesperson, Sanjay Raut, MLA Aaditya Thackeray and NCP MLA, Rohit Pawar.
Aaditya shared the picture captioning it, “MahaStrength”.
After adressing the NCP MLAs, Uddhav headed to the Marol resort, where the Sena MLAs are put. Uddhav met the Sena MLAs where he affirmed, no party will dare to breakaway the Sena MLAs.
Earlier in the morning, a group of Sena MLAs, led by Sena leader Pratap Sarnaik, visited JW Mariott hotel, where the Congress MLAs were stationed. Sarnaik stated it to be a courteous visit to strengthen the bonds between the members of the three parties who are going through turbulent phase.
