Hitting out at Devendra Fadnavis being sworn-inas the Maharashtra chief minister, the Congress on Saturday alleged that the governor was once again proved to be BJP chief Amit Shah's "hitman",while asserting that the "illegitimate" government formation will self-destruct.

The month-long political impasse in Maharashtra ended dramatically on Saturday with the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Mr Fadnavis returning as the chief minister, backed by the Nationalist Congress Party(NCP).NCP's Ajit Pawar was sworn-in as the deputy chief minister.

Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath toDevendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai at around 7.30 am.

In a series of tweets, Congress spokesperson RandeepSurjewala hit out at the BJP, accusing it of taking a "contract tokill" democracy in India."It has been proven that the BJP has taken acontract to kill the country''s democracy. The Governor has once again provedto be (BJP chief Amit) Shah's ''hitman''," he said in one of the tweets.

Mr Surjewala also posed a number of questions on thegovernment formation in Maharashtra such as when was the President's ruleremoved, the claim of forming government presented and the list of MLAs''support given to the governor."When did the MLAs appear before the Governor?Why was the swearing in done in such a manner like thieves do?"

"This is called betrayal of people''s mandate andgiving contract for killing democracy," he said in another tweet.TheCongress leader also tagged media reports on allegations of Ajit Pawar''sinvolvement in scams.

"Lust for power washes away principles andcorruption," Mr Surjewala wrote on Twitter, tagging a September tweet ofMr Fadnavis in which he had said the BJP will never ally with the NCP as it had"exposed" the latter''s corruption.The Congress has been allegingthat the governors of many states are acting at the behest of the BJP.

Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, who was at the forefrontof the Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena negotiations, said illegal and evil manoeuvrestake place in the secrecy of midnight."Such was the shame that they had todo the swearing in hiding. This illegitimate formation will selfdestruct," he said in a tweet.

Earlier, senior Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi expressedsurprise at the political developments in Maharashtra and said theCongress-NCP-Shiv Sena negotiations took too long as the window was grabbed by"fast movers"."Surreal what I read about Maharashtra. Thought itwas fake news. Candidly and personally speaking, our tripartite negotiationsshould not have gone on for more than 3 days...took too long. Window given wasgrabbed by fast movers. Pawarji tussi great ho! Amazing if true, still notsure," he said in a tweet.

Subsequently, in another tweet, Mr Singhvi said, "Mytweet at 8:45 am today while in a taking off flight to Ahmedabad has,hopefully, been overtaken by events in view of Sharadji's clarification. Eventhen I had called it surreal and possibly fake news. Appears that fakeness offull NCP joining BJP is true as per Pawar clarification."