Days after the Mahayuti stormed to power in the assembly elections, suspense continues on who will the next chief minister of Maharashtra.
Eknath Shinde, who resigend as chief minister on Tuesday, continues as caretaker chief minister until a new government is in place. The annoucement of the next chief minister may take a few days, according to sources.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti won 230 seats in the 288-member assembly elections. The results unleashed pressure on alliance partners to take a call on who will be the chief minister — Shiv Sena (Shinde) chief Eknath Shinde or BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis.
A consensus has eluded the ruling combine’s leaders on who should be the next chief minister.
The BJP's Maharashtra unit wanted Fadnavis to be the chief minister in June 2022 during political turmoil in Maharashtra, but the party’s top brass opted for Eknath Shinde as the chief minister of Maharashtra, perhaps for making the alliance possible.
The decision came after Shinde, along with over 39 party lawmakers, rebelled and spearheaded a coup of sorts against the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's MVA government.
The demand for making Fadnavis the CM this time stems from the fact that the BJP, under Fadnavis, scripted its best-ever performance by winning 132 of Mahayuti’s 230 seats. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena won 57 and Ajit Pawar’s NCP won 41 seats.
Fadnavis was in New Delhi on Monday night to attend the wedding of Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla's daughter. He did not, however, meet any BJP top brass and flew back to Mumbai, according to sources.
The MLA's in Shinde Sena are reportedly pitching for a second term for Eknath Shinde. They say, it was under his leadership that the Mahayuti alliance won the brute majority.
Some leaders in Shinde camp have referred to Bihar model, where Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United) is the chief minister despite BJP having more MLAs. The BJP has, however, ruled out the option.
“The model applicable to Bihar does not hold true for Maharashtra. In Bihar, the BJP had given a commitment to make Nitish Kumar the CM ahead of elections and honoured it. In Maharashtra, there is no reason for such a commitment as we have a stronger organisational base and leadership," BJP national spokesperson Prem Shukla told The Indian Express.
"Above all, the party never gave any commitment of continuing with Shinde as CM after the elections. On the contrary, the top leadership maintained throughout the elections that a decision on the chief minister would be based on the electoral outcome,” he said.
Even if BJP doesn’t count Shinde Sena’s 57 MLAs, it is comfortably placed to form the government with Ajit Pawar’s 41 MLAs. The majority mark in the 288-member Maharashtra assembly is 145. Ajit Pawar has already announced his support to Fadnavis as the next chief minister of Maharashtra.
The BJP is expected to announce observers for Maharashtra soon. A meeting of BJP Legislature Party will be held in Mumbai in the presence of observers to elect a leader.
Fadnavis is arguably the most prominent BJP face in the state who enjoys the confidence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP. He is also said to be in good books of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
The RSS is likely to back Fadnavis to become the chief minister of Maharashtra after the Mahayuti alliance's emphatic election victory. Not just because of his proximity to the RSS but also due to BJP's best-ever performance in the elections by emerging as the single-largest party.
