For now, there is egg on the face of all those involved in the drama of pretensions in Maharashtra, the richest state that is caught in an administrative paralysis for the past one month after assembly poll results threw up a fractured verdict. The order by the Supreme Court on Tuesday to hold a floor test soonest, on Wednesday, led to the immediate resignation of BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis and NCP’s Ajit Pawar, from the posts of chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively. Curtains are down on a drama at the behest of the BJP, which could best have been avoided if only to save face.
Even in critical times, the BJP which runs the nation should have acted with basic care and caution. Instead, it jumped the gun, met the governor to claim it has support of the NCP as well to fill the numbers for majority, and set about formation of a ministry. Ajit Pawar found an opportunity when he was re-elected as leader of the NCP legislature party and ran to the governor to claim support of the 54-member NCP bloc. He virtually cheated his uncle and party supremo Sharad Pawar, and acted in a pretentious manner in cahoots with the BJP. Sharad Pawar proved himself to be still the master of his empire, having the firepower in his party, stopped Ajit Pawar in his tracks and exposed the BJP’s games. Raj Bhavan was made to witness a hush-hush post-midnight drama, at the end of which, Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were sworn in by the governor in a controversial action on Saturday.
The Supreme Court has acted in a fair manner, upholding the rule of law, and showing light amid darkness. The BJP is facing flak also for another excess – of exoneration of Ajit Pawar from a series of cases relating to the Irrigation Scam in the state, the investigations into which was long-running. A misappropriation of Rs 70,000 crore as alleged is no joke, and the guilty needed to be punished. But, BJP was apparently caught in the politics of expediency to return to power. All the actors in this play, principally BJP president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah – if not PM Modi himself – have seriously hurt their reputations by the present hasty act. This is not to say that the Sena-NCP-Congress government will be stable, or that they deserve praise. Their actions in the past four weeks were equally questionable in most respects.