While the winter session of the Maharashtra Assembly kicked off on Thursday, separate offices have not been allotted to both factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in contravention of the practice followed for the Shiv Sena factions.
While both factions of the Shiv Sena were allotted Vidhimandal offices in Vidhan Bhavan in Nagpur, separate offices have not been allotted to both the NCP factions. Instead, the office that is allotted to NCP has cabins for NCP Ministers and a separate cabin for Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
Moreover, a cabin was also allotted to NCP chief Sharad Pawar and MLA Jitendra Awhad in the same row. However, later in the day, in a suspicious move, the nameplate of Jitendra Awhad, who is a Sharad Pawar loyalist was removed from outside his cabin.
Last year, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde who was then a Minister in the Uddhav Thackeray cabinet broke away from the Shiv Sena along with a bunch of Shiv Sena MLAs, joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party and formed the government toppling the Uddhav Thackeray led Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
The Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena claimed to be the ‘real’ party and claimed the party name and the symbol which was subsequently granted to the rebel group by the Election Commission.
However, a total of 56 rebel MLAs are facing disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution pending before Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar.
Earlier this year, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar followed the footsteps of Eknath Shinde. He took a sizeable section of NCP leaders and joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party, forming a part of the Eknath Shinde – Devendra Fadnavis government.