Senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday said that November 23 was a “black Saturday” and maintained that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (the Sena, the Congress, the NCP) still had a majority with 165 legislators.
Speaking to the media on Sunday morning, Mr. Raut said, “[NCP chief] Sharad Pawar is a national leader, if the BJP is trying to break his party, this will boomerang on the BJP. Even before the Assembly election, there was an attempt to break the NCP when the BJP poached people from the NCP. Poaching Ajit Pawar was their last move which has boomeranged. They were expecting around 25 MLAs to support Ajit Pawar. I hope the BJP has come out of that delusion now. Nearly all the NCP MLAs have returned, barely five MLAs may have stayed, and in return of five MLAs, the BJP has given Ajit Pawar Deputy CM position? They were supposed to be good at business but now are struggling,” said Mr. Raut.
He went on to say that the three parties together still had the numbers. “All Congress-NCP, Sena MLAs are with their respective parties. We now have a majority of 165 MLAs, I had said 170 in the past but now five are missing, some of them will return too. They have been kept somewhere,” said Mr. Raut and added that 49 NCP MLAs were still with Mr. Sharad Pawar.
He equate Saturday’s developments “to be worse than Indira Gandhi’s Emergency”.
“This is low-level politics. The CM of Maharashtra was sworn in and Maharashtra did not know. This is a black day for the country. The BJP has done black-marketing of the Raj Bhavan. Indira Gandhi's Emergency should not be called black day any more because this act is even worse. If you [BJP] had majority, why did you do swearing-in secretly? Also, if you [BJP] have majority, why wait till November 30? The Governor has used one rule for us and another for the BJP. Narendra Modi's image has been shattered by his own party. Our MahaVikas Aghadhi will prove majority in Assembly. Even if we are invited by the Governor right now, we can prove majority,” said Mr. Raut.
He also criticised Mr. Ajit Pawar saying, “It is not true that Sharad Pawar knew about this. Ajit Pawar took a fake document to the Governor which he accepted and gave him the oath. BJP thought Ajit Pawar will bring 40-50 MLAs, he betrayed his party and BJP betrayed him. This is the worst act of Ajit Pawar’s life by betraying Sharad Pawar.”
