Ajit Pawar is lying, submitted fake letter to governor: Ashok Chavan

Congress leader Ashok Chavan here on Monday said that Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar lied and submitted a fake letter to the state governor.

"Ajit Pawar is lying and the letter submitted by him to the governor is a fake letter. The signatures were never given for supporting BJP. NCP was never with BJP. These letters were signed to be handed over to the governor for the Shiv Sena and Congress alliance," Ashok Chavan told ANI outside Raj Bhawan here.

Ajit Pawar gave the letter of support of 54 NCP MLAs to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari as the leader of his legislature party which resulted in a BJP-NCP government formation in the state on Saturday.

Commenting on the chances of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Shiv Sena and Congress forming government in the state, Chavan said: "Letter stating the support of 162 MLAs has been submitted here to the governor, as well as the Supreme Court. We have no reason to worry as we have a clear cut majority."

"The BJP is delaying because they do not have the MLAs," he added.

At a time when deliberations among Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena on the formation of a non-BJP government in the state had seemingly reached a final stage, the BJP formed the government in a surprise development on Saturday morning when Fadnavis took oath for the second time as the Maharashtra Chief Minister, while Ajit Pawar was sworn-in as the Deputy Chief Minister of the state.

The BJP won 105 seats in the 288-member assembly in last month's assembly polls followed by Shiv Sena 56, NCP 54 and Congress 44. Although BJP and Shiv Sena got the mandate to form the government, the two parties parted ways over power-sharing.