Maharashtra: Googly war breaks out between NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Devendra Fadnavis

Pawar uses cricket analogy to dismiss deputy CM’s claim that he had agreed to form govt with BJP in 2019

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) boss Sharad Pawar said the toppling of the 2019’s short-lived Devendra Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar government was an outcome of his (political) googly that exposed that the BJP could go with anyone just to be in power.

Pawar was responding to Fadnavis’s statements in a media interview that the NCP chief had agreed to form the government with the BJP, but backed off in 3-4 days, leaving Ajit Pawar no option but to take oath of the deputy chief minister’s office while Fadnavis was sworn in as the CM in the morning of November 23, 2019.

Fadnavis had said this even before, but this time around Pawar made it a ‘no-holds barred’ duel. He questioned Fadnavis about the need for swearing-in when he (Pawar) had backed off. “I changed the policy, but then why did he take an oath early in the morning in a secretive manner? “ he said, adding, “It was necessary for the state to know that the BJP leaders were so upset about not being in power.”

Sharad Pawar. File Pic/Atul Kamble

And then, he explained what it was. “I don’t know whether it was a trap or something else. You (media) decide, but let me tell you what it was...” Pawar said he knew an Indian cricketer Sadu Shinde who bowled googlies to claim many top wickets. “I do not play cricket, but I, as the ICC president, knew how to bowl a googly. Fadnavis should tell us that my googly had claimed his wicket,” he said.

‘Will make him speak truth’

In response, Fadnavis said he was very happy that he had managed to make Pawar speak the truth. “But it is a half-truth. I will make him say the whole truth very soon. I also know how to bowl a googly. My one googly has caused some truth to surface. The next one will bring out the remaining truth.

Then and now

After the 2019 Assembly mandate, the united Shiv Sena had refused to form the government with its pre-poll ally the BJP. Instead, it went with the Congress and NCP in exchange for the CM post for Uddhav Thackeray. Due to the Sena-BJP stalemate, president’s rule was imposed in the state, but it was lifted overnight before Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were sworn in on November 23. The government was short-lived and collapsed within three days.

Thackeray, the new anti-BJP front Maha Vikas Aghadi’s CM-elect, took oath on November 28. Last June, the MVA lost power after 40 Shiv Sena MLAs and 10 independents left Thackeray to be with the BJP. The coup general Eknath Shinde was made a CM on June 30, 2022, and Fadnavis asked to be his deputy. The slugfest between the two coalitions hasn’t stopped since then and it intensified further as the Shinde-Fadnavis government completed a year in office.

Nov 23
Day in 2019 when Ajit Pawar was sworn in as DyCM

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