While the Nationalist Congress Party was all for a stable government in Maharashtra, the party would never join the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the State and would think again about supporting it at the time of the next confidence motion, said NCP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Sunday.
Censuring the BJP government on the confusion over the November 12, 2014 trust vote, Mr. Pawar said it was the duty of the government to come clean on the numbers.
“The government has drawn unnecessary attention over the murky proceedings of the trust vote. While the voice vote was being taken, it was extremely unclear who was for or against the government,” Mr. Pawar said, speaking on the sidelines of a review meeting of NCP workers in Pimpri-Chinchwad in Pune.
The government had not submitted the requisite letter of support to the Governor showing that it had a simple majority, i.e. the backing of 145 MLAs in the 288-member Assembly. Further, deviations in the Assembly schedule cast doubts in the minds of the public over the legitimacy of the proceedings.
Despite this, Mr. Pawar refused to state clearly whether the NCP, which is offering unconditional and unsolicited support to the BJP government, would continue to do so in the future.
“There is no point in criticising the government now. One must give it some time to show its work,” he said.
Mr. Pawar dared the government to conduct a probe into corruption allegations against him, remarking that the erstwhile Congress-NCP government itself had formed a Special Investigation Team to look into the irrigation scam.
“The SIT had suggested various courses of action. The action taken report was also tabled in the Assembly. The present BJP government is free to take whatever steps it so desires,” said Mr. Pawar.
