Setback for MVA as Eknath Shinde sails through

MUMBAI: Though Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena (UBT) have maintained that the Maha Vikas Aghadi is intact and that the three parties would contest the Lok Sabha and assembly elections together, senior leaders of the alliance on Thursday said the Supreme Court verdict has come as a setback as it has given huge relief to CM Eknath Shinde.
MPCC president Nana Patole said the SC has no doubt passed strictures against then governor B S Koshyari saying he was not justified in calling on Uddhav Thackeray to prove his majority on the floor of the house, but the court justified Koshyari’s decision to invite Shinde to form the government.
A senior NCP leader said it was expected that SC would make comments on the way Shinde took 39 Shiv Sena legislators with him and raised a banner of revolt against Thackeray. It hasn’t done that. “In addition, it has referred the disqualification issue to the speaker and asked him to decide in a reasonable period. We feel SC should have set a deadline for the Speaker,” the leader said.
The NCP leader said in the recent past, MVA has experienced a number of chinks. While legislators deserted Thackeray and joined hands with Shinde, Sharad Pawar’s critical remarks in his book against Thackeray added fuel to the fire.
Pawar has expressed surprise and shock over the poor presence of Thackeray in Mantralaya when he was CM. Further, Pawar has expressed displeasure over the way Thackeray resigned as CM without consulting MVA constituents. Eyebrows were raised recently about Pawar’s meeting with industrialist Gautam Adani at his residence, and Pawar had objected to the opposition’s demand for a JPC probe into allegations against the Adani Group. Ex-CM Prithviraj Chavan was the first senior Congress leader to speak on Pawar’s views on the JPC.
To make matters worse, in several districts, Congress recently joined hands with BJP for securing control over APMCs, and state Congress chief Nana Patole even removed the chief of a district Congress committee for taken BJP’s help during these polls.
Publicly, both Congress and NCP on Thursday asked CM Shinde and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis to resign in view of SC’s critical observations against the then governor.