BJP on Sunday said leaders of the ruling MahaYuti alliance and the BJP leadership will decide who will be the next chief minister of the state. Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said incumbent Chief Minister (CM) Eknath Shinde who belongs to the Shiv Sena (SS), Deputy (Dy) CM Devendra Fadnavis from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Dy CM Ajit Pawar from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will reach Delhi to discuss on the future shape of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the state where all sections of the society supported the BJP in the Assembly polls and rejected the Congress.
The focus has now shifted to BJP leader Fadnavis, the architect of his party’s stunning victory as it bagged 132 of the 149 seats it contested in the state. Political circles are abuzz with reports that the state’s second Brahmin to become the CM will don the post for the third time. BJP’s national joint general secretary Shiv Prakash and Maharashtra unit head Chandrashekhar Bawankule met Devendra Fadnavis at his residence on Sunday.
The tenure of the current state Assembly ends on Tuesday, which has also necessitated meetings among leaders of the ruling allies to finalise the name for the CM’s post.
The BJP-led MahaYuti, on Saturday retained power in the state by bagging 230 of the 288 Assembly seats. The Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) dream of wresting power fizzled, with the opposition combine managing to garner just 46 seats. The BJP bagged 132 seats, the SS won 57, while the NCP got 41 seats.
In the MVA, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) (NCP-SP) candidates won 10 seats, the Congress won 16, while the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) (SS-UBT) won 20 seats.
Bawankule said the decision on CM would be taken by the Mahayuti leaders and the BJP’s parliamentary board. “The selection process would be in-line with the alliance’s plans for governance,” he added.
Notably, the Mahayuti’s landslide in Maharashtra will leave the state Assembly without a Leader of Opposition as no party outside the ruling alliance has been able to get the mandatory minimum 29 seats. “The mandate of the people in this Assembly election is against the Congress. Having no leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly is the karma of Congress,” Bawankule said.
NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said the Ladki Bahin scheme, women’s participation in voting in large numbers, and religious polarisation may have played a role in Mahayuti’s victory in Maharashtra Assembly polls. He said the election results, declared on Saturday, are not on the expected lines but he would revitalise his party. Responding to a query on his retirement from active politics, Pawar tersely said he and his party colleagues will decide.
Responding to a query on EVMs, a day after SS (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut expressed doubts over the massive verdict in Mahayuti’s favour, Pawar said he would speak about EVMs only if he has official data.
