You are at right place after long, but came very late: Shah to Ajit Pawar

Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Sunday shared the dais with Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar at an event in Pune and said the latter is now at the "right place after a long time", but "came very late".

Shah's statement comes more than a month after Ajit Pawar, the nephew of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar, joined the ruling Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Eknath Shinde along with eight party MLAs on July 2.

Pawar was made deputy chief minister, while the other eight MLAs, including Chhagan Bhujbal and Dilip Walse Patil, were sworn in as ministers.

"This is my first public programme with Ajit Pawar. I want to tell him that he is now sitting at the right place after a long time. This was always the right place for you, but you came to sit here very late," Shah said.

Shah was speaking after launching the digital portal of the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS) office. CM Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis were also present at the event.

In November 2019, after the assembly polls and the split between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were sworn in as CM and Deputy CM, respectively, in an early morning ceremony in Raj Bhavan. However, their government lasted just 80 hours with Pawar returning to the NCP.

Later, Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray was sworn in as CM after his party joined hands with the NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. The MVA government, however, fell in June last year after Eknath Shinde and 39 MLAs revolted against Thackeray and split the Shiv Sena.