Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday described his teaming up with NCP leader Ajit Pawar to form a short-lived 80-hour government in the state in 2019 as a mistake, adding he does not regret it. “I don’t regret it but we should not have formed such a government. This was a mistake,” the BJP leader said during an online interaction with editors of Marathi daily Loksatta.
On November 23, 2019, amid hectic parleys between the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress to form a non-BJP government in the state after the polls threw up a hung Assembly, Fadnavis and Pawar were sworn in at dawn in a ceremony at Raj Bhavan. “Even if this (forming the government with Ajit Pawar) was a mistake, when you are stabbed in the back, you have to stay alive in politics,” Fadnavis said, referring to Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray ‘reneging’ on the pre-poll alliance with the BJP.