The BJP’s best-ever electoral showing in Maharashtra has turned 54-year-old Devendra Fadnavis into the frontrunner for chief minister but the central leadership might still choose to continue with Eknath Shinde to underscore its commitment to the “coalition dharma” and ensure future political gains, insiders said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president J.P. Nadda, Union home minister Amit Shah and defence minister Rajnath Singh were huddled at the party headquarters after Saturday evening’s victory celebrations to discuss the chief minister conundrum, sources said.
Some within the BJP believe that given the party’s dizzying strike rate of 89 per cent — it has won 132 of the 148 seats it contested — party workers might feel demoralised if they did not have their own chief minister.
The two other big players in the Mahayuti alliance — Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction — trail far behind with scores of 57 and 41.
“With such a big mandate, the BJP’s claim to the chief minister’s post becomes very natural. But the top leadership appears to be in a bind, taking long-term considerations into account,” a BJP leader said.
While deciding on the chief minister pick, the central BJP leadership must ensure that Uddhav Thackeray, who leads the other Shiv Sena faction, doesn’t get an opportunity to bounce back, he said.
Besides, the long-pending elections to the cash-rich Mumbai municipal corporation are likely next year. Many in the BJP fear that if Shinde is edged out of the top job, Uddhav might cite it to accuse the BJP of “using and throwing out a Shiv Sainik”.
“Uddhav’s Sena has been defeated conclusively by the Shinde faction in the Assembly polls. But the Thackeray family’s influence has to be crushed in the civic elections, and to that end we need Shinde,” a BJP leader in Mumbai said.
The two Sena factions’ vote bases lie mostly in the Mumbai and Thane regions.
The BJP brass continue to nurse a grudge against Uddhav for his “betrayal”. The then chief of the undivided Sena had dumped old ally BJP, after contesting the 2019 Assembly elections in coalition with it, and tied up with the Congress-NCP to grab power in the state.
However, the powerful Maharashtra lobby in the BJP, as well as the party’s ideological parent RSS, are said to be vehemently against a repeat “sacrifice” of the chief minister’s chair.
“Eknath Shinde has already established himself as a strong chief minister and a Maratha leader. If we make him chief minister again, it could be very difficult to dislodge him later,” an RSS official said.
The Sangh is said to have told the BJP leadership to underline, in its parleys with Shinde, how Fadnavis had happily agreed to be his deputy after serving as chief minister and ask him why he cannot return the favour.
Shinde had served as a minister in an earlier BJP-Sena government helmed by Fadnavis.
If Fadnavis loses out in the race for chief minister, the RSS may lobby to have him replace Nadda as the BJP’s national president, sources said. Sources close to Fadnavis, however, say he is reluctant to move to Delhi.
Fadnavis’s high-profile wife Amruta dropped the same hint on a news channel on Saturday when asked which of the two roles she preferred for her husband: Maharashtra chief minister or BJP president.
“I am very attached to Maharashtra and I want to be in Maharashtra,” she said.
On Sunday, Fadnavis highlighted his “sacrifice” in a post on X with a hint that he deserved a reward.
“Victory of sacrifice, victory of patience, victory of loyalty, victory of Maharashtra,” he posted, attaching newspaper clips that described him as the hero of the Mahayuti’slandslide victory.
Later in the day, Fadnavis posted an open letter thanking the people of Maharashtra and hailing Modi.
“The true architect of this victory is the faith shown by the entire people of Maharashtra in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji,” he wrote.