Maharashtra political crisis: BJP and Sena factions huddle to keep their flock close

• The Supreme Court will decide if an immediate floor test would be held today.
  
  
• Ajit Pawar, the deputy CM tweeted that NCP and BJP alliance will stay on.
  
  
• Sharad Pawar too tweeted and said that Ajit Pawar’s tweet is misleading and that they are with Sena.
  

Almost all of Maharashtra’s political machinery had either a sleepless night or a fitful sleep on Sunday night. Today, the Supreme Court will decide if an immediate floor test would be held to test the strength of the hurried Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government that was formed on early Saturday morning.

Amidst the melee, Ajit Pawar — the man of the hour — decided not to u-turn yet again as widely expected. Siding with the BJP and Modi, he tweeted that the BJP and NCP alliance will stay. This confused the already dazed voters of Maharashtra, who were under the assumption that Pawar had broken away from his mother party, led by his uncle Sharad Pawar.

To clear the air, Sharad Pawar tweeted that Ajit Pawar’s message was misleading and that they still with the Sena. But the confusion over whose government will stand and who will fall is still unknown.

Ajit Pawar also decided to step away from his personal residence — where he had a flurry of NCP, BJP and Congress party leaders visit him all day — late in the night. The current chief minister Fadnavis too held a long discussion with deputy CM Ajit Pawar over bringing in the much needed 145 MLAs to form the government.

BJP won 102 seats during the assembly elections while the NCP and Congress won 54 and 44 seats, respectively. The Sena won 56 seats, which shifted the balance of power between them and the BJP — former allies turned foes.

Since then, both sides have been accusing each other of poaching MLAs. On Sunday morning, the Supreme Court ordered the Maharashtra government to produce two letters — one that furnished by Fadnavis to the governor saying that he had the requisite majority to form government, and another where the governor invited him to form the government.

The entire state and country were shocked at the dramatic twist of events, when the governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari cancelled President’s rule early Saturday morning to swear in Fadnavis as chief minister and Ajit Pawar as his deputy at 8:00 am. Just the night before, NCP-Sena-Congress alliance had agreed to Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister, extending the political stalemate that has been at play for a month.