A year ago, Devendra Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar govt was formed in Maharashtra. What happened next?

In one of the biggest political surprises of Maharashtra – exactly a year ago on Nov 23, 2019 - Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari swore in Devendra Fadnavis as the Chief Minister and Ajit Pawar as Deputy Chief Minister.

The government, however, lasted only for nearly 80 hours and collapsed on Nov 26, 2019.

Two days later, on Nov 28, 2019, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray was sworn in as the chief minister.

It has been a year since – but there is still a mystery over what happened that midnight of Nov 22-23, preceding with the early morning swearing-in at the state's Raj Bhavan.

The 'coup' panned out after the Shiv Sena walked away from its three-decade-old ally BJP and joined hands with the diametrically-opposite in ideals, Congress-NCP, to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi.

This three-day government is the shortest regime in Maharashtra's history, but the discussion over the matter is not as short-lived.

At this position, NCP founder-President Sharad Pawar, who is often referred to as ‘Chanakya’ and ‘Bhishma Pitamah of Indian politics’, salvaged the situation and ensured the MVA came to power.

That his nephew would walk away when a new formation was taking shape, came as a jolt to the 'Trimurti' union of Sena-NCP-Congress.

Pawar recently wrote a letter to the Governor, in his book ‘Janrajyapal: Bhagat Singh Koshyari'. Pawar wrote: “…when I previewed the coffee table book, it revealed the photographs of ceremonies - except a particular swearing-in ceremony.”

'Pawar Jr' has, so far, maintained stoic silence on this issue and has never spoken out.

Fadnavis, however, had claimed that 'Pawar Sr' was aware of what was going on but has backed out at the eleventh hour.

“In 2017, there were a couple of meetings but things didn't work out. The same thing was tried in 2019. Sharad Pawar ditched us despite coming up with the proposal of forming the government. He changed his decision at the eleventh hour,” Fadnavis had said, earlier in June 2020.

The interesting development was the Nov 20 meeting between Pawar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Modi had offered me to work together. I told him that our personal relations are very good and they will remain that way, but it is not possible for me to work together," Pawar had said. He even revealed that there was also an offer from Modi to make his daughter Supriya Sule, a Cabinet minister.