Maharashtra: Congress lashes out at Governor, says 'govt formation a travesty'

Congress leader Randeep Sujrewala, on Saturday, addressed a press conference and questioned the Governor of Maharashtra over “presuming” that Devendra Fadnavis could prove the majority to form the govt in the state. He also termed this move by the Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari as the “travesty, subjugation and murder of Constitution”. He also said that NCP never officially split and thus accepting their claim was against Constitution 

Randeep Sujrewala on the govt formation in Maharashtra 

Congress leader, Randeep Sujrewala in a press conference said that “The Governor of Maharashtra, to my knowledge and subject to correction met Shri Devendra Fadnavis at about 2 am in the night. And by 5:47 am the President’s rule had been withdrawn, for that there is a process in the Constitution. That process says the Governor should first satisfy himself that there is a government that can be constituted in accordance with law and people claiming the majority have the real majority. We know as of today that the NCP has not been split. Under the tenth schedule called the anti-defection law, two things are mandatory. Number one, a political party must split and number two, two-third of the legislators must walk away.” 

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“Till today we have not heard that Mr. Ajit Pawar making any single statement that the Nationalist Congress Party has split. In absence thereof, how can the Governor consider any letter? Another thing, until and unless, all of these 36 legislators went to the Governor post declaration of the split of NCP and said we hereby have constituted a separate political party, how could the Governor accept that mandate? These are two fundamental questions,” he added 

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Randeep Sujrewala on the letter given to the Governor 

Sujrewala said, “To our understanding and knowledge and whatever has been told to the Congress representatives, there was no meeting of the NCP legislators, no legislator went to the Governor and an attendance sheet of the legislators was given to the Governor, without really having anything on top of it, except for Mr. Ajit Pawar’s statement that they have split. So, if there is ever a travesty of the Constitution, its subjugation and throttling and murder of Constitution and democracy, this is a classic case.” 

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“When at 2 am, the Governor receives Devendra Fadnavis to accept the claim for the formation of Government, then the first duty would be to ensure a majority. And if BJP had earlier claimed (when they were called by the Governor) they said that they did not have the majority, it was the duty of the Governor to ask them that. This majority is only possible by the way of a split in NCP, but it never happened in the 10th schedule of the Constitution. The 36 legislators too didn’t give their representation in writing, Governor never verified the signature of each legislator either by the way of their attendance or via an affidavit. How could the Governor presume that Mr. Devendra Fadnavis had the majority and that is the travesty and subjugation and the murder of the Constitution, which happened in broad daylight,” he added.

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