As Lok Sabha polling in Maharashtra nears its conclusion, a series of startling revelations have emerged from opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders like Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut, shedding light on the behind-the-scenes political dynamics surrounding the appointment of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in the recent past.
Sanjay Raut has made sensational claims that during the formation of the Mahayuti coalition government in Maharashtra, several high-ranking leaders from both the NCP and the BJP, who are now part of the current dispensation, had vehemently opposed Shinde’s elevation to the Chief Minister’s post in 2019. Raut alleges that when the undivided Shiv Sena, under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray, decided to forge an alliance with the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s undivided NCP, prominent leaders from both parties, including Ajit Pawar, Dilip Walse-Patil, and Sunil Tatkare, who are now part of the Mahayuti government, strongly objected to Shinde’s potential appointment as Chief Minister. They reportedly expressed their unwillingness to work under “a junior and inexperienced person like him.”
Raut further claims that the BJP also harbored reservations about Shinde’s suitability for the Chief Minister’s position. He alleges that even after the victory of the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election, senior BJP leaders like Devendra Fadnavis, Girish Mahajan, and Sudhir Mungantiwar had conveyed their reluctance to see Shinde appointed as Chief Minister.
These revelations have sent shockwaves through the political landscape of Maharashtra, particularly given that both Ajit Pawar and Fadnavis currently serve as Deputy Chief Ministers under Shinde in the Mahayuti dispensation. The Shiv Sena ultimately severed ties with the BJP soon after the 2019 Assembly election results following bickering over the CM’s post, resulting in Uddhav Thackeray allying with the NCP and Congress to form the MVA government, with Thackeray himself assuming the Chief Ministership.
In a separate development, NCP chief Sharad Pawar has claimed in a newspaper interview that his party would have split way back in 2004 had Chhagan Bhujbal, now with rebel NCP leader Ajit Pawar’s faction, been made Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Bhujbal, a cabinet minister in the Mahayuti government, has refuted Pawar’s claims, stating that even the Congress had apparently wanted him to be CM in 2004 but that Pawar senior had not allowed it to happen.
These revelations have added a layer of intrigue to the ongoing electoral campaign, with both the MVA and the ruling Mahayuti coalition seeking to sway voters ahead of the crucial final phase of the Lok Sabha polls on May 20th.
