The Wire Staff 
Mumbai: The Mahayuti alliance, comprising three major players – the BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction), and the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar faction) – put on an impressive show, winning 235 seats in the recently concluded Maharashtra state assembly election. However, the win didn’t ensure a smooth formation of the government, with the chief ministerial post still remaining a major bone of contention.
The BJP, with 132 seats on its own, is aggressively pushing for Devendra Fadnavis, a former chief minister, who had to take the backseat in the previous government and settle for the post of the deputy chief minister.
Shinde asks supporters to stay calm
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, however, has also been negotiating hard for the post. After he split the original Shiv Sena into two and took away the majority of MLAs to join hands with the BJP, he was rewarded with the chief minister’s post for over two and a half years.
Shinde, who built his image as a strong leader and also put up a strong fight in the assembly election, winning 57 seats, has been unwilling to settle for anything less than the CM’s post.
However, in a not-so-cryptic post on social media in the wee hours of November 26, Shinde asked his supporters to stay calm and not gather anywhere in Mumbai. The post, while not mentioning why his supporters might gather, amply indicates the possibility of him stepping down and lowering his expectations this time.
The BJP needs only an additional 13 MLAs to form a government, something the party can easily manage without having to take either Shinde or Ajit Pawar along. It is important to note that the party has broken two important regional parties – Shiv Sena and NCP in order to retain power in the last government. So, it is more for the latter two to adjust than for the BJP.
Pawar prefers a BJP CM over Shinde
In the previous government, with Shinde as the chief minister, the working relationship between him and Ajit Pawar had not been particularly smooth. Both Shinde and Ajit Pawar belong to Maratha community and are most appealing to their own caste base in the state.
A growth of one leader can be a direct threat to the other. From sources in the NCP (Ajit Pawar faction), it is understood that Ajit Pawar would prefer supporting a BJP CM over Shinde simply to counterbalance the latter’s growing clout in the state.
Around 11 pm on November 26, Shinde handed over his resignation to Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan. He will continue as acting CM until the new government is formally formed and the new CM is sworn in.
Fadnavis, under whose leadership the BJP has grown exponentially in the state over the past decade had to swallow his pride and settle for a deputy CM’s post the last time. His performance as a state leader, however, only grew with time and the party enjoys the best position in Maharashtra.
Soon after the result was out, Fadnavis had put out a celebratory video positioning himself as the leader of the state. Conspicuously, both Shinde and Ajit Pawar were missing from the over 3-minute-long video.
Fadnavis meets Shah and Nadda in Delhi
On November 25, Fadnavis was in Delhi attending meetings with the party’s top leaders. According to media reports, Fadnavis was in the national capital to meet Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President J P Nadda to discuss the modalities of the formation of the next government in Maharashtra.
The three winning leaders, who had put up a show of strength and togetherness only three days ago have now reportedly distanced over the CM post – almost a repeat of what happened in 2019, when the BJP allegedly didn’t stick to its promise made to the then united Shiv Sena and didn’t consider Uddhav Thackeray for the CM’s post.
Thackeray had later broken ties with the BJP and formed a government with the then united NCP and Congress.
Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s NCP has put out their worst ever performance in the election this time, with them winning 20, 16 and 10 MLA seats respectively. The parties are still reeling under the impact of the loss they suffered in the election.