BJP retorts to Ajit Pawar's 'I'll be back' jibe; says "Dada couldn't hold to 28 MLAs"

Reopening old wounds, BJP Maharashtra chief Chandrakant Patil on Saturday, pointed out to Deputy CM Ajit Pawar that he 'could not hold 28 MLAs for 80 hours', in reply to Pawa's jibe on BJP MLAs joining NCP. Addressing the press at Pune, Patil told Pawar to worry who will Sharad Pawar choose to lead NCP rather than worrying about BJP. Ajit Pawar had briefly rebelled from NCP to ally with Fadnavis, leading to his 80-hour stint as Maharashtra Chief Minister in November 2019.

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Patil: 'Couldn't hold 28 MLAs'

He added, "Ajit Pawar should stop thinking about us and should care about his own party. He should care about who will Sharad Pawar handover the leadership when the time comes". Ajit Pawar had recently taken a jibe at Patil saying 'Some people say I will go back, but they are not called by the people of Pune'. Patil - who represented the Pune graduates' constituency before he became Kothrud MLA - could not deliver the Pune graduates' constituency in the recent MLC polls.

Maharashtra: NCP wins Aurangabad and Pune graduates' constituencies

On December 4, BJP suffered a defeat in polls to six constituencies – three graduates’ and two teachers’ and local bodies' - Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Dhule-Nandurbar and Amaravati. The Sena-NCP-Congress bagged the Nagpur, Pune and Aurangabad graduate constituency seats - toppling BJP from Fadnavis and Gadkari bastion - Nagpur and Patil's bastion - Pune. Independent candidate Kiran Sarnaik won the Amaravati Teacher’s seat while BJP won the Dhule-Nandurbar constituency and Congress won the Pune teachers' constituency.

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Fadnavis & Ajit Pawar

Fadnavis had unsuccessfully partnered with Ajit Pawar to be sworn-in as Maharashtra CM for mere 72 hours. Ajit Pawar rescinded his support after the Supreme Court ordered an open ballot floor test in the Maharashtra Assembly immediately, leading to Fadnavis and Pawar's resignation.  Uddhav Thackeray was sworn in as the chief minister of Maharashtra on November 28 after Shiv Sena allied with  NCP-Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. The BJP-Sena alliance of 35 years fell out over a 50-50 power-sharing and shared CM post, post winning the Maharashtra State polls. Prior to the 2019 Maharashtra state polls, Shiv Sena had reiterated that it will accept only the 50:50 formula, while BJP denied ever having agreed to such a formula.

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