Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday told NCP chief Ajit Pawar that “one day you will become the chief minister”.
On December 5, Ajit Pawar, who has been outspoken about his chief ministerial ambitions, became the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra for the sixth time.
Fadnavis made the remarks during the ongoing winter session in Nagpur while responding to a debate in the Legislative Assembly on a motion thanking the governor for his joint address to both houses of the state Assembly.
Fadnavis also said that Ajit Pawar will work in the morning as he wakes up early, while stating that he and his deputies Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde will work in 24/7 shifts.
“Ajit Pawar would work in the morning because he got up very early. I was on duty from 12 noon to midnight, the whole night… you all know who it is,” said Fadnavis, who Referring to Cinder, who was known to work late.
“You are called the ‘permanent deputy chief minister’… but I wish you… that you will become the chief minister one day,” Fadnavis said.
Ajit Pawar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayutthi government in 2023 after the split in the Nationalist Congress party founded by Sharad Pawar.
In the ensuing battle over the party’s name and its “clock” symbol, his faction got both. His uncle, veteran politician Sharad Pawar, now leads the National Communist Party (SP), the party that formed the alliance between the Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) under the leadership of Maha Vikas Aghadi Vikas Aghadi).
Earlier this week, 39 ministers were sworn in at the Raj Bhavan in Nagpur. Thirty-three MLAs were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers and six MLAs were sworn in as Ministers of State (MoS). However, the allocation of the Mahayut government’s portfolio is yet to take place.
The Mahayutthi Party, composed of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress, won a landslide victory in the November 20 parliamentary elections, winning 230 seats in the 288-member House.