Daulat Daroda, Anil Patil and Nitin Pawar were brought back by NCP youth work workers.The three leaders reached Mumbai at around 4:30 this morning. Another MLA, Narhari Zhirwal, is on his way to Mumbai from Delhi.
“52 MLAs of the party have come back to us, one more is in touch with us,” senior NCP leader Nawab Malik told news agency ANI.
Daulat Daroda – against whom a missing person’s complaint was filed after the chaotic events of Saturday, surfaced in a video on Sunday and offered his support to party chief Sharad Pawar. “I’m safe. I’ve come after winning election on the clock symbol (NCP), so there’s no question of changing the party. Whatever decision Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar take, I’m with that. Don’t believe in any rumours,” he said in the video.
With one eye on a likely floor test, the NCP, the Shiv Sena and the Congress all rushed to guard their MLAs by sequestering them luxury hotels in Mumbai. NCP MLAs, who were taken Renaissance Hotel on Saturaday, were moved to the Grand Hyatt hotel in Santacruz East. While the Sena MLAs are at Lalit Hotel, the Congress has moved its MLAs to JW Marriott.
Dramatic scenes unfolded on Saturday as a group of NCP MLAs from Sharad Pawar’s camp went to the Mumbai airport to bring the rebels back but returned without them. Later, reports said Shiv Sena MLAs brought back one more NCP member to the YB Chavan centre, the headquarters of the NCP.
The NCP won 54 MLAs in the 288-member Maharashtra assembly, finishing third after the BJP (105) and Shiv Sena (56).
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, asked the centre to produce two letters – one from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis claiming majority and another from the Governor inviting him to form the government – by today.
Early Saturday morning, the BJP made a deft political move with Mr Fadnavis taking oath as Chief Minister with a deputy, Ajit Pawar, whose NCP had just hours before sealed a Shiv Sena-led alliance along with the Congress. Ajit Pawar’s uncle Sharad Pawar said his party is still with the Shiv Sena and its chief Uddhav Thackeray.
Prasanta Patnaik