Anwar demanded that the party needed to propose someone native-born as the prime ministerial candidate and not the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, who had entered party politics and replaced Sitaram Kesri as Congress president. In response, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) expelled the trio for six years from the party. In response Pawar and Sangma founded the Nationalist Congress Party in June 1999. Despite the falling out, the new party aligned with the Congress party to form a coalition government in Maharashtra after the 1999 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election to prevent the Shiv Sena-BJP combine from returning to power. Sharad Pawar, however, did not return to state politics and Vilasrao Deshmukh of Congress was chosen as Chief Minister, with Chagan Bhujbal representing the NCP as the Deputy Chief Minister along with Home Affairs and Jayant Patil as the Finance Minister. In government Jayant Patil became the youngest finance minister of Maharashtra, presenting his first budget at the age of 39. He went on to present the Maharashtra Budget 10 times consecutively, a record till date, and brought many major changes to the State. He is often credited with reviving the state economy from a low point in 2003-2004. At the time, the State’s financial condition was in a precarious condition due to overspending by the previous Government in ambitious projects like the Mumbai–Pune Expressway, Krishna Valley Irrigation Project, etc. Additionally, the implementation of the 5th Pay Commission had also put a considerable strain on the State’s financial resources. In 2001, Jayant Patil met with a severe accident near Bangalore and had to undergo multiple operations on his fractured legs and was confined to a wheelchair for several months. He presented the finance budget of 2001 while he was still on the wheelchair. In his 10-year stint as the finance Minister from 1999-2008, Patil took firm steps to strengthen the State’s finances like delinking dearness allowance paid to the State Government from the Central Government, appointing a committee of secretaries to probe the issues of excess State Government staff and acting and abolishing many posts in the State Government. He also tried to delay the implementation of the 6th Pay Commission as much as possible. Taking advantage of falling interest rates, Jayant Patil also raised fresh loans to retire high cost debts. All these measures reduced the State Government’s expenditure on items like salary, pension and interest from 75 percent of the