Mumbai: The National Congress Party (NCP) on Monday claimed that Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari's decision to accept the Eknath Shinde-led government's move to withdraw the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi's recommendation for the nomination of 12 names as MLCs was a bid to lure more leaders into the ruling camp.
The party further highlighted that the previous government led by Uddhav Thackeray had recommended 12 names for nomination as MLCs two years ago, but the file was never approved by Governor Koshyari.
An official on Sunday said the Shinde government wrote to the governor to treat the recommendation as withdrawn and that Koshyari accepted the decision of the new government. The Shinde government had told the governor that a fresh list of nominations shall soon be conveyed to him.
NCP's chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase on Monday said, "The constitutional validity of the Shinde government is in question and the Supreme Court's verdict is awaited on it." The decision to cancel names recommended by the previous MVA government is a "carrot" to lure more leaders into the BJP-Shinde camp, Tapase claimed.
"The Shinde cabinet seems to be driven by the sole agenda of overriding the earlier decisions taken by the MVA government out of sheer vengeance," he further alleged. The sentiments of the electorate in Maharashtra are fast turning against the BJP-Shinde government, he claimed.
Prominent among the 12 names suggested by MVA included actor Urmila Matondkar who had joined the Shiv Sena after quitting the Congress. Other names from the Shiv Sena include Vijay Karanjkar, Nitin Bangude Patil, and Chandrakant Raghuvanshi. Raju Shetty, Yashpal Bhinge, Eknath Khadse, and Anand Shinde are the names from the NCP, while Sachin Sawant, Anirudh Vankar, Muzaffar Hussain, and Rajnitai Patil from Congress are also among the 12 names included in the list.
