Mahayuti leaders spar amid suspense over Maharashtra CM

Discordant voices emerged on Sunday from the Mahayuti even as the alliance continued to remain in the throes of government formation more than week after it swept the Maharashtra assembly polls.

IMAGE: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde with Deputy CMs Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis during a press conference, at Varsha Bungalow in Mumbai on November 23, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The Mahayuti, comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party, Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, won 230 of the 288 assembly seats in the state.

The BJP led with 132 seats, while the Shiv Sena got 57 and NCP 41.

Shiv Sena MLA Gulabrao Patil on Sunday said the Eknath Shinde-led party would have won 90-100 seats in the November 20 assembly polls if Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party was not part of the Mahayuti.

Pawar had joined the Shinde government in July last year and was made deputy CM.

"We contested only 85 seats. Without Ajitdada, we could have won 90-100 seats. Shinde never asked why Ajit Pawar-led NCP was inducted in his government," Patil, a minister in the outgoing government, told a regional news channel.

He also hailed Shinde and said the latter was a large-hearted man who believed in fighting rather than sulking.

Hitting back, NCP spokesperson Amol Mitkari asked Patil to not shoot off his 'loose tongue' in this manner.

"Patil should first think about getting inducted in the ministry. There are little chances of him becoming minister this time," Mitkari said.

In another war of words within the Mahayuti, Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Gaikwad, who scraped through from Buldhana in the November 20 polls by a wafer-thin margin of 841 votes against Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray candidate Jayshree Shelke, targeted his colleague and Union minister Prataprao Jadhav and BJP's Sanjay Kute.

"Jadhav called a close aide of Shiv Sena-UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray and asked them to field Shelke against me. Kute also called up Shiv Sena-UBT leader Anil Parab with the same request. Not a single district-level leader of my party or alliance was with me," Patil claimed.

"Why did Kute meet Shelke in the middle of the night? Why do leaders from allies act like this," he further questioned.

Jadhav is LS MP from Buldhana and is Minister of State for Ayush as well as Health and Family Welfare in the Narendra Modi government.

Kute won the November 20 polls from Jalgaon (Jamod).

Meanwhile, senior BJP leader and former Union minister Raosaheb Danve said if BJP and undivided Shiv Sena had contested the assembly polls as allies, the sweep would have been far bigger than the one achieved by the Mahayuti.

Speaking in Mumbai after meeting senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, Danve said, "The Shiv Sena split because of Sanjay Raut. You wait for six months. He will cause a rift between Uddhav Thackeray and Aaditya Thackeray as well."

"Had the Sena not split and had it contested the polls with the BJP, the victory would have been bigger than what we have achieved now. Even in 2019, we won the assembly polls comfortably," Danve said.

The undivided Shiv Sena and BJP ended their alliance after the 2019 assembly polls over sharing of the chief ministerial tenure.

Thackeray went on to join hands with the Congress and (undivided) NCP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

Then minister Eknath Shinde rebelled against Thackeray in June 2022, split the Shiv Sena and brought down the MVA government. In July last year, the NCP split after Ajit Pawar, against the wishes of party founder Sharad Pawar, joined the Shinde government.

The Mahayuti is yet to announce who will be chief minister in the government that will be sworn in on December 5.

In a post on X on Saturday, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said the swearing-in ceremony will be held at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speculation is also rife on the role of Shinde in the new government, while some of his colleagues have openly said the Shiv Sena must be given the key home department.