The Shiv Sena (UBT), led by Uddhav Thackeray, said that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde would be replaced soon by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar, who was sworn in as the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra on Sunday. According to MP Sanjay Raut, 16 rebel Shiv Sena MLAs will be disqualified, and Shinde will be removed from the position of CM.
"Today I am saying this in front of the camera, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra is going to change. Eknath Shinde is being removed. Eknath Shinde and the 16 MLAs are going to be disqualified," Sanjay Raut told news agency ANI.
"The BJP is breaking Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress but this will not benefit them at all. In Maharashtra, we will fight the 2024 polls together. It is shocking that PM Modi had said that the leaders of NCP are involved in corruption and now those leaders have taken oath in Raj Bhawan," he said.
Ajit Pawar led a vertical split in the NCP to become the deputy chief minister, shocking his uncle Sharad Pawar, who established the party quite a while back. Eight NCP leaders were additionally sworn in as leaders in the Shinde-BJP government. In an article in its mouthpiece Saamana, the Uddhav team asserted that Ajit Pawar didn't join the Eknath Shinde-led government for the delegate CM post.
"Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and rebel MLAs of the Sena would be disqualified soon, and Pawar would be coronated,” it claimed.
"This new development will not go down well with the people of the state. The state had no such political tradition and the people will never support it," it said.
It further said that when Shinde and other MLAs left the Shiv Sena last year, they blamed party president Uddhav Thackeray for not controlling then-finance minister Ajit Pawar, who had assumed monstrous command of asset dispensing and endorsing work orders.
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