Sharad Pawar: Uddhav’s faith in Shinde may be behind the crisis, Fadnavis clearly unhappy with Deputy CM post

Speak­ing to media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Pawar said the main chal­lenge for the Shinde gov­ern­ment is to gain cred­i­bil­i­ty in the eyes of the Maha­rash­tra peo­ple giv­en the cir­cum­stances under which it was sworn into pow­er. He claimed that the BJP’s Deven­dra Fad­navis was vis­i­bly unhap­py at being appoint­ed deputy prime min­is­ter and was forced to accept the post due to pres­sure from par­ty bosses.

“I believe that Uddhav Thack­ay’s work­ing style is such that when he trusts some­one, he gives them com­plete auton­o­my in their work. We saw that he had giv­en Eknath Shinde full respon­si­bil­i­ty for run­ning the leg­isla­tive wing as well as the par­ty. He gave him the lead. I don’t know if that is the cause of what turned out,” Pawar said.

Express­ing his sur­prise at Fad­navis’ appoint­ment as deputy CM, Pawar said: “One who was the CM and worked as the leader of the oppo­si­tion has been appoint­ed deputy CM. There are things you need to do when the order comes from Del­hi or Nag­pur. It was a big sur­prise, but when you want to enjoy pow­er at all costs, things like that hap­pen and Fad­navis saw that today.”

आज माध्यम संवाद साधताना नवनियुक्त नवनियुक्त मुख्यमंत्ी श्ी. एकनाथ शिंदे आणि उपमुख्यमंत्री श्री. देवेंद्र फडणवीस यांना शुभेच्छा दिल्या. तसेच त्या असलेल्या विविध र घडामोडींविषयी आपले विचार व्यक्त. https://t.co/Q9WFhpdyEd#Press con­fer­ence

— Sharad Pawar (@PawarSpeaks) June 30, 2022

Pawar claimed he spoke to Shinde and con­grat­u­lat­ed him after he became CM and said that Shinde man­aged to see over 40 MLAs leave the Shiv Sena. “The exemp­tion cur­rent­ly in force has the required major­i­ty and oth­er par­ties must accept this real­i­ty with dignity.”

Pawar went on to say that cen­tral bod­ies like the ED are being used to attack and pres­sure polit­i­cal oppo­nents. He claimed that in recent days he has received com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the Income Tax Agency ask­ing for infor­ma­tion on prop­er­ty affi­davits he filed while con­test­ing the Lok Sab­ha elec­tions. “I have received IT com­mu­ni­ca­tions ask­ing for own­er­ship details that I showed in the affi­davit filed for the 2004, 2009 and 2019 Lok Sab­ha elec­tions and the 2020 Rajya Sab­ha elec­tions,” said Pawar.

Pawar took on Gov­er­nor Bha­gat Singh Koshyari, say­ing: “He must reflect on his behav­ior and work to restore the pres­tige of the gov­er­nor’s office.”

When Shinde became CM, the BJP’s grass­roots, who were in a cel­e­bra­to­ry mood over Fad­navis’ return to the helm, were caught off guard. How­ev­er, Shiv Sena and Con­gress claimed they knew it was coming.

“I’m not surprised…I knew they were going to make Eknath Shinde CM. That must have been the deal. Why else would so many MLAs be run­ning to Surat and Guwahati…it’s clear they’ve been work­ing on a deal for the last year,” said Shiv Sena MP San­jay Raut.

Con­gress spokesman Atul Lond­he said: “We have dis­cussed this among our­selves. We had come to the con­clu­sion that the BJP would act in favor of Shinde.”

Lond­he added that Shinde becom­ing CM means that the BJP is get­ting clos­er to their ambi­tion to “smash” the Sena. “Besides try­ing to check­mate Sena, BJP also trimmed Deven­dra Fad­navis,” he added.

BJP’s Sud­hir Mungan­ti­war down­played reports that Fad­navis was unhap­py, say­ing: “At BJP we take orders from our top leader as an ordi­nary Karyakar­ta… Deven­dra Fad­navis will use all his expe­ri­ence for the advance­ment and pros­per­i­ty of the peo­ple of Maharashtra.”

Shiv Sena’s Maval MP Shri­rang Barne, known for his close­ness to Shinde, said he was com­plete­ly sur­prised by the move. “I could­n’t believe that Shinde could become prime min­is­ter. The way BJP has been going for the last two and a half years, I thought they would make Fad­navis the CM.”