Betrayal of people's mandate, 'illegitimate' govt formation will self-destruct: Cong

Mumbai, Nov 23: The Congress hit out at Devendra Fadnavis being sworn-in as the Maharashtra chief minister on Saturday, saying it was a "betrayal of people's mandate" and the "illegitimate" government formation will self-destruct.

The month-long political impasse in Maharashtra ended dramatically on Saturday with the BJP's Fadnavis returning as the chief minister, backed by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

NCP's Ajit Pawar was sworn-in as the deputy chief minister. "This is called betrayal of people's mandate and giving contract for killing democracy," Congress's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in a tweet. He also tagged media reports on allegations of Ajit Pawar's involvement in scams.

"Lust for power washes away principles and corruption," Surjewala said on Twitter, tagging a September tweet of Fadnavis in which he had said the BJP will never ally with the NCP as it had "exposed" the latter's corruption.

Maharashtra Congress's Sanjay Nirupam said today, "People would be thinking I will be happy by today's developments, but I am actually very sad. Congress has been unnecessarily defamed in this and thinking of alliance with Shiv Sena was a mistake. I appeal to Sonia ji to at first dissolve Congress Working Committee.

Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, who was at the forefront of the Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena negotiations, said illegal and evil manoeuvres took place in the secrecy of midnight. "Such was the shame that they had to do the swearing in hiding. This illegitimate formation will self destruct," he said in a tweet.

Earlier, senior Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi expressed surprise at the political developments in Maharashtra and said the Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena negotiations took too long as the window was grabbed by "fast movers".

"Surreal wht I read abt #Maharashtra. Thought it was fake news. Candidly &personally speaking, our tripartite negotiations shd not have gone on for more than 3 days...took too long. Window given was grabbed by fast movers. #pawarji tussi grt ho! Amazing if true, still not sure (sic)," he said in a tweet.

Subsequently, in another tweet, Singhvi said, "My tweet at 845 am today while in a taking off flight to ahmdabad has, hopefully, been overtaken by events in view of #Sharadji's clarification. Even then I had called it surreal & possibly fake news. Appears that fakeness of full #NCP joining bjp is true as per #Pawar clarfn (sic)."

Meanwhile, an urgent meeting has been called by Congress at party office in Mumbai. Senior party leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and KC Venugopal to be present there today.