The game changer night in Maha politics

A meeting between NCP, Congress and Sena began at 4.30 pm at Nehru Center in Worli here, it lasted for more than two hours and went very well. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar first emerged from the meeting and told the media persons that there had been a consensus over the name of Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister. However, Uddhav did not say anything about it. At around 8 am the next day, Devendra Fadnavis took oath as the Chief Minister.

Mumbai (Maharashtra):It was comparatively cool Friday night in Mumbai. But behind the curtains, a political scene was hotting up.
The first-ever meeting between the three major parties NCP, Congress and Sena took place at Nehru Center in Worli, which incidentally is the constituency of Aditya Thackeray.

The meeting which began at 4.30 pm and lasted for more than two hours went very well. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar first emerged from the meeting and told the media persons that there had been a consensus over the name of Uddhav Thackeray as a chief minister. Later Uddhav came out of the meeting but did not say anything about it. Instead, he indicated that the talks are yet to finish and one more round would happen on Saturday after which the media will be briefed.

Uddhav's non-commital about accepting the Chief Minister's post was quite noteworthy but media did not hyped it since Pawar has given a clear indication of a consensus.

After the meeting, the Thackerays went to Dadar at the Balasaheb's Samadhi and left for their residence in Bandra.

Mysteriously Sharad Pawar had left early saying that he has certain urgent work to attend. Did Pawar get some hint from somewhere? One does not know. Today, Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena leader, said that in yesterday's meeting Ajit Pawar was evading eye to eye contact. Did Pawar also notice such things? Pawar says he did not.

But one thing became very clear from this meeting. The government of the three parties is going to be a reality very soon.

With this, the Chanakya's in the BJP got alerted. They tapped Ajit Pawar. Devendra and Ajit Pawar had been in touch for a while. They exchanged notes. Once Devendra ensured that all things are in place he decided to approach the Governor.

Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari is an old BJP leader. He was asked to be ready for a flurry of activities for the next 18 hours. At 9.30 pm Devendra Fadnavis approached the Governor saying that he has got a support of 173 MLAs of which 105 are from the BJP and 54 are from NCP. The rests are independents or others.

Koshyari agreed to entertain him provided he could procure the letter of the NCP along with the signatures. Ajit Pawar was asked to come up with the letter. In between Governor appraised Delhi of this development.

The BJP's in-charge Bhupendra Yadav, who on behalf of Amit Shah was keeping an eye on the entire happenings, became active. The top leadership was appraised and they are in principle green signal was sought.

In between Ajit Pawar procured the letter. At what point did he procure it from the NCP office is not yet clear. Either it was already with him or he managed to smuggle it at the late hour. But it looks like he, as ahead of the NCP legislative party, could lay hands on such a letter.

At 12 midnight, Ajit Pawar approached Governer Koshyari and handed over him the letter. Once all the legal notices were checked, at 12.30 am Koshyari sent a report to the Center that the President's rule could be revoked. The Home ministry got into an act and it, in turn, recommended to the President to revoke the President rule.

Around 5.45 am a notification to this effect was issued by the Governor at the behest of the President.

Once this was ensured, Devendra again approached the Governer to hold the oath-taking ceremony as early as possible.

Taking a cue, the ceremony took place at around 8 in the morning.

This was a sort of midnight coup and only a few people knew about it.

From the BJP only Devendra, his family members, party state president Chandrakant Patil and Girish Mahajan were present. Other major leaders like Sudhi Mungantiwar (who is supposed to be close to Nitin Gadkari) or BJP's ex-state president Raosaheb Danve did not know about it. Most of the leaders came to know about it when they watched it on the TV.

In the NCP, only very close aids of Ajit Pawar were kept informed. One of them was Dhananjay Munde. In fact, Munde's residence was the centre of activity all through the night. Some of the MLAs were asked to come at 7 am to Munde's house. Accordingly, some 11 of them gathered. They were told that some discussions have to be held at someplace. Then to their surprise, they were taken to the Raj Bhavan where the oath-taking took place.

Some of the MLAs like Sanjay Bansode or Manikrao Kokate were perhaps aware of what was happening. Others like Rajendra Shingne were not. But Ajit Pawar managed to do a kind of show of limited strength before the governer.

At around 8.30 am the news has spread widely and Ajit Pawar went to his brother's place in south Mumbai where he was holed up till late night.