Mumbai: In a sudden political development in Maharashtra, senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar - the nephew of party chief Sharad Pawar - on Sunday split the legislative party and joined the state's NDA ministry with eight other MLAs.

Sixty-three-year-old Ajit Pawar has joined the state's NDA government for the second time since 2019, when he had a short-lived tryst as deputy CM before returning to the NCP fold in two days.

Ajit Pawar, so long the leader of the opposition, took over as the second Deputy Chief Minister (after BJP's Devendra Fadnavis) on Sunday as he was administered the oath by state Governor Ramesh Bais at Raj Bhavan here in the presence of NCP veteran Praful Patel - a longtime close confidant of Sharad Pawar.

Although Patel did not take oath as state minister, there is speculation that he may be inducted into the union ministry.

A few other NCP MLAs will be included in the Shinde ministry soon, Pawar told media persons after taking his oath, and said he took the decision for the development of the country and "to solve the problems of the people of Maharashtra."

He showered praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Shinde, who himself became the chief minister a year back by engineering a similar split in the ruling Shiv Sena after rebelling against the then chief minister and party chief Uddhav Thackeray, claimed 35 out of NCP's 54 MLAs were present in the Raj Bhavan along with Pawar.

In all, the new deputy chief minister enjoyed the support of more than 40 NCP legislators, he said.

After Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Valse-Patil, Hasan Mushrif, Dhananjay Munde, Dharmaraobaba Bhagwantrao Atram, Aditi Tatkare, Sanjay Bansode and Anil Patil also were sworn in as ministers.

Bhujbal is a leading OBC leader in the state.

Profusely praising Ajit Pawar, Shinde said he has always done the politics of development.

The Chief Minister said now his double engine government - BJP and the Shiv Sena (Shinde) - has a triple engine for the development of the state.

Pawar's joining would give a further boost to the government which was already working for the state's development under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shinde added.

On the other hand, NCP's Maharashtra Chief Spokesperson Mahesh Tapase termed the developments a part of BJP's ‘Operation Lotus’ programme.

In a statement, Tapase said all the leaders, workers, district presidents and frontal organisations are with Sharad Pawar.

Over the past couple of months, political circles in the state were agog with speculation about the possibility of Ajit Pawar jumping ship.

Ajit Pawar was said to be unhappy over being sidelined in the party, with Sharad Pawar elevating Supriya Sule and Praful Patel as working presidents.

Recently, Ajit Pawar also wanted to quit as Leader of the Opposition and sought an organisational responsibility, but the party national executive asked him to wait for two months.

(With UNI Inputs)