Ajit Pawar joins Shinde government, takes oath as Deputy Chief Minister

Mumbai (IANS). In another major upheaval in Maharashtra politics on Sunday, in a fast-paced development, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ajit Pawar broke away from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and joined the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government along with his supporters. He took oath of the post of Deputy Chief Minister in the afternoon.

Earlier this morning, Pawar called a meeting of more than three dozen of his supporting NCP MLAs, in which the outline of the political future was discussed.

Soon after the meeting, Pawar went to the Raj Bhavan to meet Governor Ramesh Bais to hand over letters of support to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and shortly after took oath as Deputy Chief Minister for the third time in the current assembly’s term.