'Identification parade' an insult of MLAs: BJP's Ashish Shelar

"We saw the Congress-NCP-Congress show an identification parade... If the head himself considers the leaders as culprits, then it's a blot on democracy... We want to say that this is an insult of the elected MLAs," Shelar told media persons here.

Terming it an insult to the MLAs and the people who elected them, Shelar said: "Identification parade is done in case of accused persons, not in the case of elected MLAs."

He said that Vidhan Sabha numbers cannot be proved with such tactics and added, "It will only lead to a loss of confidence of the MLAs... This shows how much of self-confidence you have on your MLAs... Power comes and goes, but what you are doing today is clearly been seen by the entire country... For power, you have done all this and disrespected the mandate."

Further, Shelar questioned whether 145 elected MLAs were present at the event.

Shelar said the BJP does not need to ask people to join the party.

The MLAs of Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena today pledged jointly in the presence of their senior party leaders at a Mumbai hotel, saying that they would not get "lured" and "will not do anything which will benefit BJP".

"I swear that under the leadership of Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and Sonia Gandhi, I will be honest with my party. I won't get lured by anything. I will not do anything which will benefit BJP," all the MLAs present in the Hotel Grand Hyatt said while taking the pledge.

Earlier in the day, NCP legislative party leader Jayant Patil along with Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan and others visited Raj Bhawan and gave a letter showing the strength of 162 MLAs to the officials at Raj Bhavan.

After which Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut invited Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to "come and watch" the show of strength of the three parties.

The Supreme Court today reserved the order on a joint petition filed by Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP against the decision of Koshyari to invite BJP to form government in the state.

The petition was filed after BJP's Devendra Fadnavis took oath for the second consecutive term as the state Chief Minister, with NCP's Ajit Pawar as his Deputy Chief Minister on Saturday morning.

The order on whether the floor test will be conducted for proving the majority of the BJP-led Fadnavis government is expected to be pronounced at 10:30 am tomorrow.

( With inputs from ANI )