Mumbai:

A press conference in which Devendra Fadnavis announced that he would take oath as the Maharashtra chief minister at 5.30 pm on Thursday, capping days of speculation, also served as the stage for some banter between allies, with Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde taking a light-hearted dig at NCP President Ajit Pawar. 

Refusing to clear the air on whether he would take up the post of deputy chief minister under Devendra Fadnavis after being seen as a claimant for the top job, a visibly exasperated Mr Shinde said during the press conference on Wednesday that he would let people know later. 

When Mr Pawar interjected to say that he would definitely take oath as one of the deputy chief ministers and nothing would stop him, eliciting laughter, Mr Shinde quipped, clapping his hands:  “Dada ko anubhav hai, subah bhi lene ka aur shaam ko bhi lene ka (He has experience taking oath in the morning and the evening).”

Joining in the fun, Mr Pawar said in Marathi – barely controlling his laughter – that the last time he and Mr Fadnavis took oath in the morning, they could not run a government for long and that they would stay for the entire term of five years this time.

Both Mr Shinde and the NCP chief were talking about 2019 when Mr Pawar, who was still part of the united NCP led by his uncle Sharad Pawar, took oath as the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra with Devendra Fadnavis as the chief minister in an early morning ceremony at Raj Bhavan.

This dispensation lasted all of 80 hours after Ajit Pawar could not manage to get the support of enough NCP MLAs to align with the BJP and a government of the united Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress was then formed with Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister. Ajit Pawar was the deputy chief minister in this government as well. 

The Thackeray government, however, also did not last its full term after a rebellion by Eknath Shinde, who split the Shiv Sena in 2022 and went on to become the chief minister. Mr Pawar then rebelled himself, splitting the NCP, and took oath as the deputy chief minister – alongside Devendra Fadnavis – the next year. 

In Wednesday’s press conference, Mr Shinde also thanked Mr Fadnavis for meeting him on Tuesday and asking him to be part of the government but said he would make his intentions clear later, given that there was still some time for the swearing-in ceremony. 

The oath ceremony will take place at Azad Maidan in Mumbai and will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a host of other BJP and NDA leaders in attendance.

New Delhi:

Jailed radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh and Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid, who were granted parole to take oath as members of the Lok Sabha, were sworn in as MPs on Friday amid heavy deployment of security personnel in and around the Parliament complex.

While Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, was in Delhi’s Tihar jail in a terror funding case registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Singh was lodged in a prison in Assam’s Dibrugarh district for offences under the National Security Act.

They were brought to the Parliament complex by security personnel this morning.

The MPs-elect took oath in the chamber of the Lok Sabha Speaker after completing formalities, a source said.

Singh, 31, and Rashid, 56, won the recent Lok Sabha elections from Khadoor Sahib in Punjab and Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir, respectively, as Independents while being incarcerated.

They could not take oath as members of the 18th Lok Sabha on June 24 and 25 along with the other winning candidates.

For taking oath, Rashid was granted a two-hour custody parole, excluding the travel time from Tihar to Parliament, and Singh a four-day custody parole, beginning July 5, in view of the travel from Assam to Delhi and back.

Their parole orders stated that during their period of temporary release, they can neither speak to or address the media on any issue or make any statements. Their family members also cannot make a statement in any form of media.

While Singh, a Khalistani sympathiser who heads the ‘Waris Punjab De’ outfit, has been allowed to meet his family in Delhi, Rashid’s family had permission only to attend his oath-taking. The parole for Rashid, who has been in jail since 2019 after his arrest in 2017, was granted by a court in Delhi and that of Singh by the district magistrate of Amritsar from where he was arrested in April 2023 for barging into a police station in February and clashing with police personnel in a bid to free one of his aides from custody.

Both Singh and Rashid are to be accompanied by security personnel at all times during their parole periods, the orders stated.

The Delhi Police and Punjab Police were directed to coordinate with the secretary general of the Lok Sabha for procedures inside the Parliament complex.

The name of Rashid, a former MLA, cropped up during the investigation of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, who the NIA had arrested for allegedly funding terrorist groups and separatists in the Kashmir valley.

The NIA had filed a charge sheet against several individuals, including Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin in the case. Malik was awarded life imprisonment by a trial court in 2022 after he pleaded guilty to the charges. Singh styled himself after Khalistani terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and is in jail along with nine of his associates under the National Security Act. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)