"No Dispute About That": Congress's Prithviraj Chavan On BJP's 134 Claim

Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan today admitted that the BJP indeed has the numbers it is claiming -- 134 in a house of 287 -- as crisis hit Maharashtra's ruling alliance, in which his party is a member. The whole operation, Mr Chavan told NDTV, "was orchestrated from Delhi" and a "huge amounts of money have changed hands".

Asked about the BJP claims of having 134-135 MLAs, Mr Chavan said in an exclusive interview,"There is no dispute about that".

The escalating crisis in Maharashtra was set off by Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde, who is camping out in Surat with 21 MLAs, following a disagreement with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray over the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections. As Mr Thackeray sacked him from the post of the chief whip, Mr Shinde retaliated by removing the name of Shiv Sena from his Twitter bio.

The Sena has sent emissaries to Surat to initiate talks with the rebels.

The government, Mr Chavan meanwhile indicated, is safe.

"To break the Sena, you need two-thirds of party members to leave, which means around 37 members have to walk away. Eknath Shinde definitely does not have that kind of numbers. We are hearing he has 12 or 13 members. So if they cross over, they lose membership," he said.

Talking about how the crisis unfolded, he said the whole cross-voting operation from the Rajya Sabha elections which took place a few days ago and the Council elections, which took place yesterday, "is being conducted from Delhi".

"Mr Devendra Fadnavis, had gone yesterday to seek directions from you-know-who and there were meetings in Delhi. The financial arrangements for the elections were all made from Delhi. Massive horse trading took place and people were induced to work for the BJP," he said.

Asked why the crisis came about now, Mr Chavan said within coalitions, "there are issues".

"In the current situation, Shinde thought that he will be the Deputy Chief Minister. He had many creamy portfolios which he wanted. For over two-and-half years there were no problem, and suddenly there's this.

For the Congress, he said, this is a matter for "serious introspection".

"Not only people voted and joined the BJP, apparently there was interchange of votes between two candidates which is very difficult to understand and I think it is very bad for the Congress party," he added.