Pawar, Uddhav meet NCP MLAs

MUMBAI: NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday met at a suburban resort where the NCP legislators have been been staying.

The Sena chief was joined by senior party leaders and son Aaditya Thackeray, who won the last month’s Maharashtra Assembly polls from Worli seat in Mumbai, during his discussion with Pawar, sources said.

The Sena was helping the NCP and Congress to keep their flock together, they said.

The Shiv Sena’s trade unions have a robust presence in several of the city’s top hotels.

Forty-four NCP legislators moved to the Renaissance hotel in Powai area late Saturday night after they attended a party meeting at the Y B Chavan Centre in south Mumbai.

The three parties were in the last stages of talks to form government when, in a dramatic turn of events in the early hours of Saturday, NCP leader Ajit Pawar broke away from his party and joined hands with the BJP.

BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis was then sworn is as the chief minister and Ajit Pawar as his deputy by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, NCP’s MLA Manikrao Kokate (from Sinnar), who was present when Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were sworn in at the Raj Bhawan, returned to the suburban hotel around the same time when Sharad Pawar arrived there on Sunday.

IAND reported that the NCP and the Congress were conducting ‘cross-meetings’ with their MLAs in the proposed ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’.