Angry BJP defends Fadnavis return, says our votes helped Shiv Sena win

The BJP on Saturday angrily defended a stunning power grab in Maharashtra that saw Devendra Fadnavis form a government with help from a rebel opposition leader from the NCP.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a press conference that before the October state election, Devendra Fadnavis had been the chief ministerial candidate of an erstwhile alliance between the BJP and the Shiv Sena.

The BJP's votes helped the Shiv Sena to a large extent, and the coalition's victory was both a moral and electoral win for the BJP, Prasad said.

The senior BJP leader



also tore into Opposition parties NCP and Congress: he asked them why they indulged in "match-fixing" to grab power when they had admitted that the mandate was for them to sit in Opposition.

The Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress were working to form a governing coalition before Saturday morning's stunning developments.

In fact, NCP chief Sharad Pawar said last night that all three parties wanted Uddhav Thackeray, the Shiv Sena chief, to be chief minister.

Today, Pawar senior said his party had had no hand in his nephew Ajit Pawar's decision to jump ship.