The Congress and Shiv Sena have shifted their MLAs to hotels after the stunning incident in the wee hours of Saturday when Ajit Pawar-led NCP gave support to BJP and Devendra Fadnavis sworn in as the Maharashtra CM for the consecutive second time.
Shiv Sena has shifted its 55 out of 56 MLAs at the Hotel Lalit in Navi Mumbai while earlier in the day, Congress shifted its 44 MLAs to a hotel in Bhopal.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya Thackeray, who is also an MLA from Worli, reached the hotel to meet its legislators.
It is also reported that the phones of all the Shiv Sena legislators were submitted and two MLAs are allotted a separate room to keep a close vigil on their movements.
The attempt is made to avoid poaching of their MLAs by BJP.
Sources said that Congress MLAs are under the monitoring of former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh.
In the ongoing tussle in Maharashtra since October 24, the date of the election result in the state, this is not the first time that the parties booked its MLAs in a hotel.
The Congress had earlier flown its MLAs to a safer place in Jaipur to prevent poaching and kept them there till the time for BJP to claim government formation in the state was over.
On Saturday morning, Devendra Fadnavis sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra while NCP’s Ajit Pawar as Deputy Chief Minister. BJP has 105 MLAs in the 288-seat Maharashtra assembly where it requires 145 seats to prove the majority. In a press conference, Sharad Pawar claimed 8 to 9 MLAs went with Ajit Pawar in the swearing-in ceremony on false claims. He also claimed all his MLAs to be intact and stand with him. It is still not clear how the BJP will claim numbers in the assembly.
Perhaps, BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said in a press conference that his party will prove the majority in the Assembly during the floor test.