Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Ashish Shelar on Monday said that in order to 'mislead' the people of Maharashtra, Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena have submitted a letter to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, claiming to form a government in the state.
"Via the medium of television, we got to know that Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena have claimed to form the government at Raj Bhavan today. The letter submitted by these parties is nothing but a way to mislead the people of Maharashtra," said Shelar.
"Today these parties (Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP) did not mention that in whose leadership are they going to or they want to form the government. They haven't even decided about that. That's a letter of cheating and fraud," he added.
"Constitutionally, Ajit Pawar is still the leader of NCP but his signature was not there in the letter submitted by the three parties with the Governor today. Many MLAs of these parties are dissatisfied so in order to give them a solution by misleading them, hence they have submitted the letter today," he added.
Earlier today, Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena leaders submitted a letter at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai showing the strength of 162 MLAs to the Governor.
After a prolonged uncertainty over the government formation that lasted for nearly a month, BJP's Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday morning took oath for the second consecutive term as the state chief minister, while Ajit Pawar was sworn-in as his deputy.
Soon after the swearing-in, Sharad Pawar had said that Ajit's decision to support the BJP was a "personal decision" and not supported by the NCP.
Ajit was later sacked as the NCP's legislator party leader, stripping his rights to issue a whip to the party MLAs.
( With inputs from ANI )