On November 23, people of Maharashtra woke up to the news of Devendra Fadnavis being sworn in as the Chief Minister for the second time. In addition to this, NCP leader Ajit Pawar was sworn in as Deputy CM. While the BJP-NCP government still has to pass the floor test and it needs to be seen whether NCP MLAs will side with BJP or with Congress-Shiv Sena, Fadnavis returned to the Mantralaya, the state secretariat building in south Mumbai.
After taking charge, one of the first things that he did was to sign the cheque for the Chief Minister's Relief Fund and was seen handing over the cheque to a woman.
CM Devendra Fadnavis’ first signature of this tenure was done on a #CMReliefFund cheque, on reaching Mantralaya, which was handed over to Kusum Vengurlekar by CM. pic.twitter.com/x43LtP6cbG
— CMO Maharashtra (@CMOMaharashtra) November 25, 2019
Post this came the news of Ajit Pawar getting a clean chit in 9 cases related to the irrigation scam. Since the news comes within 48 hours of Ajit Pawar and Fadnavis joining hands to form the government, this move is being seen with suspicion.
For those unaware, the irrigation scam dates back to the time Ajit Pawar was the irrigation minister of Maharashtra in a Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government. Ajit Pawar was alleged to be at the helm of irregularities in projects and this scam is said to be the tunes of 76,000 crores.
Ajit Pawar has been given a clean chit in 9 cases that were related to irrigation scam. However, Maharashtra Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) in conversation to news agency ANI said that none of these cases was related to Ajit Pawar.
Maharashtra Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) DG, Parambir Singh to ANI: None of the cases that were closed today are related to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, Ajit Pawar. pic.twitter.com/bX4KMy83Ej
— ANI (@ANI) November 25, 2019
#WATCH Maharashtra Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) DG, Parambir Singh: In none of the 9 inquiries that have been closed today, name of Ajit Pawar is figured. No irregularities were found in these 9 inquiries. These are routine inquiries. pic.twitter.com/kme8VOOAsN
— ANI (@ANI) November 25, 2019
After the oath-taking ceremony, Ajit Pawar managed to avoid media interactions all day and even remained enclosed in his South Mumbai residence throughout Sunday. Later on Sunday night, Ajit met Fadnavis and both of them had closed-door discussions at CM's official residence and were joined by Chandrakant Patil, Vinod Tawade and Girish Mahajan.
According to the tweet by CMO Maharashtra, the CM and the Deputy CM discussed various measures for rain-hit farmers and providing assistance to unseasonal rain-affected farmers.
Shiv Sena, however, thinks that there is more than meets the eye and has been demanding that Fadnavis should resign with immediate effect. Shiv Sena deputy leader Priyanka Chaturvedi also tweeted the copy of the letter and slammed BJP and NCP and even said that now we know the real reason behind this alliance.
वाह वाह सत्ता का खेल,
— Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) November 25, 2019
अब पता चल क्यूँ हुआ ये मेल
जाँच हुई फेल
ना लेनी पड़ेगी कोई बेल
Cases closed, corruption charges dropped, shamelessness to be in power exposed #MahaDeceit pic.twitter.com/dBELS9qgAA
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