Eknath Shinde govt will collapse in six months, be ready for mid-term polls: Sharad Pawar

Mumbai, Jul 04: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said that mid-term polls are likely in Maharashtra as the government led by rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde may fall in the next six months.

While addressing NCP legislators and other leaders of the party here, Pawar claimed that many of the rebel legislators supporting Shinde would soon start showing unrest once the ministerial portfolios are announced.

"The newly formed government in Maharashtra may fall in the next six months, hence all should be ready for mid-term polls," Pawar reportedly said, according to an NCP leader who spoke to PTI.

The NCP leader went on to say that Pawar also pointed out that the failure of this experiment will lead to several rebel MLAs returning to their original party. If all we have is six months, NCP legislators should spend more time in their respective assembly constituencies, he said.

Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister of Maharashtra on Thursday following the collapse of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, while senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis took oath as Shinde's deputy.

Around 40 Sena MLAs led by Shinde rebelled against the party leadership, which eventually resulted in the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government on Wednesday.