In a swipe at Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar on Monday said he will not resign on moral grounds following the Supreme Court verdict on last year's political crisis in the state. The opposition MVA alliance will see what it can do on the issue of disqualification of 16 MLAs during the assembly session in July, he added.
He also took a swipe at the BJP's central leadership.
"There is no need of demanding resignation from the current Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on moral grounds. We know he will not resign even in his dreams. There is a huge difference between former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the current people," Mr Pawar told reporters.
"The next Assembly session will be held in July. We will use our rights to see what we can do about this issue," he added.
He also said that Congress leader Nana Patole resigned as Speaker without consulting then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and if a new Speaker had been elected immediately, the 16 MLAs belonging to the Shinde camp would have been disqualified.
"Our Speaker had resigned then without asking our Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. That should not have happened. Even when he resigned, we could have elected a new Speaker immediately. If we had our Speaker, then those 16 MLAs would have been disqualified," he said.
The constituents of Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance had said that the Shinde government should resign on moral grounds following the Supreme Court verdict.
Uddhav Thackeray faction leader Sanjay Raut had said on Thursday said the Shinde government in Maharashtra was "illegal and formed against the Constitution."
Chief Minister Shinde on Thursday said that former Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari had acted as per the situation at the time.
"I won't talk about what Supreme Court said about the then Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, but I would say that he acted as per the situation at the time," he said at a press briefing.
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis described the Supreme Court verdict as "victory of democracy and the democratic process".
"This is a victory for democracy and the democratic process. We are satisfied with the verdict given by the Supreme Court," Fadnavis said.
The Supreme Court on Thursday held that former Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari was "not justified" to call for a floor test based on the request of Eknath Shinde faction since he did not have enough objective material before him to conclude that Mr Thackeray had lost the confidence of the House.
A five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said it could not disqualify the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government and reinstate Mr Thackeray as Chief Minster because the latter had chosen to resign instead of facing a test of strength in the Assembly.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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