'Pre-election deal for CM post': Shinde Sena leader's remark revives memories of Uddhav's claim in 2019

NEW DELHI: The BJP in Maharashtra would be feeling a strange sense of deja vu. Five years after Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena claimed that there was an agreed "deal" with the BJP over rotational chief minister, now Eknath Shinde's Sena says there was a "deal" with the saffron party for the top job if Mahayuti won the 2024 assembly elections.

A Shiv Sena leader, who is close to caretaker chief minister Eknath Shinde, has claimed that there was an agreement after the Lok Sabha elections that Shinde would take over the reins of the state if Mahayuti won the assembly polls.

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The Sena leader said that after the Mahayuti's debacle in the LS polls, there were a series of meetings to draft a strategy for the assembly elections. "In these meetings, it was decided that BJP would contest the maximum number of seats followed by Shiv Sena and NCP, but "irrespective of the number of seats the Mahayuti constituents win, Shinde will continue to be the CM if Mahayuti secures a clear majority," the leader claimed.

The Shiv Sena, which won 57 seats in the assembly elections, is making a strong pitch for continuity at the top and wants the BJP to let Eknath Shinde continue as Mahayuti's chief minister. However, the BJP, with 132 seats in its kitty, which is only 12 short of the half-way mark in the 288-member assembly, is firm about Devendra Fadnavis leading the new government.

Rejecting Sena's contentions, BJP leaders say that Union home minister Amit Shah had made it clear during the course of the elections that while Mahayuti was contesting the assembly polls under the leadership of Shinde, but in the event of it securing a clear majority, the new CM would be decided by BJP's parliamentary board and heads of Shiv Sena and NCP.

In 2019, after the assembly election results were out, the BJP had faced a similar challenge. The BJP and Shiv Sena, then united under NDA, had secured a comprehensive victory to retain power in the state winning 161 seats after a five-year term under Devendra Fadnavis. However, Uddhav's party, which had won only 56 seats compared to BJP's 105, claimed that the then BJP chief Amit Shah had agreed on rotational chief ministership for the two parties.

Amit Shah strongly denied Uddhav's claim. "No such promise was ever made to them. I make promises not in a closed-door room, but in public meetings—out in the open, in a loud and clear voice," Amit Shah had then said at a public gathering.

As the rift over the issue widened, Shiv Sena severed its ties with the BJP and formed a post-poll alliance with NCP and Congress under the banner of Maha Vikas Aghadi and Uddhav Thackeray became the chief minister.

However, 2024 is different from 2019. The BJP, with 132 seats under its belt, is in a commanding position and none of its allies is in a position to dictate terms to the saffron party. While Eknath Shinde's party may be pressing hard for the top post, it would not want to strain ties with the BJP and lose the gains it has made in the last two-and-half years. It will be interesting to see how the BJP reacts to Shinde Sena's claim of "pre-election deal".