Fadnavis leaves for Delhi, expected to meet Amit Shah along with Shinde, Ajit Pawar

Mumbai, Nov 25 (IANS) Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday evening left for Delhi for a ‘private’ function where he is likely to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the government formation in the state.

Sources said that the Deputy Chief Minister is expected to hold a meeting with the party’s central leaders over the government formation in the wake of MahaYuti’s landslide victory in the state assembly election.

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar are also likely to leave for Delhi to participate in the meeting with the Home Minister.

Sources said that the trio is expected to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah tonight to discuss the formalities to be completed for the government formation and the Chief Minister’s post, besides, the Cabinet formula among BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP will also be taken up for discussion during their meeting.

The meeting is crucial especially when the chorus is rising for Fadnavis to be the Chief Minister within the BJP as several newly elected legislators are making a strong pitch after they met the former at his official residence Sagar. BJP has yet to convene the meeting of the newly elected legislators to elect the state legislature party group leader, chief whip and whip.

However, both Shiv Sena and NCP have already held their meetings and appointed Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar as the group leaders of their respective state legislature parties.

A senior BJP leader said that it is not only the BJP legislators and the rank and file that want Fadnavis to become the Chief Minister but RSS too is in his favour.

He said that Fadnavis, who was the second Chief Minister after Vasantrao Naik to complete a five-year tenure, became the Chief Minister for 80 hours second time after Ajit Pawar had deserted his uncle in November 2019.

“After Eknath Shinde was appointed as the Chief Minister in June 2022, Fadnavis followed the party's directive and joined the government as Deputy Chief Minister. The situation has changed completely now as BJP broke its previous record of winning 122 seats in 2019 as it has bagged 132 seats and it is due to Fadnavis’ leadership. The central leadership is expected to give its green signal soon,” the BJP leader said.

Interestingly, Shiv Sena legislators are strongly making a case for the party chief leader Eknath Shinde to continue as the Chief Minister, saying that he is the natural claimant for being an architect of the MahaYuti’s stellar performance in the state Assembly election.

On the other hand, NCP legislators are arguing that Ajit Pawar, who is known as the best administrator, should become the Chief Minister.

A section of the MahaYuti alliance is floating a formula of dividing the Chief Minister’s post among themselves whereby BJP and Shiv Sena can hold the post for two years each and NCP for one year. This will be based on the number of legislators of the respective parties. However, there has been no official statement from any ally yet.

--IANS

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