CM Fadnavis: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said that the relations between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the then undivided Shiv Sena were first broken in 2014 when the Shiv Sena insisted on contesting 151 seats instead of 147 seats.
Fadnavis said in an event held on Monday night in honor of Sikkim Governor Omprakash Mathur that the BJP then planned to contest 127 seats and was ready to give 147 seats (for the 288 -member state assembly elections) to Shiv Sena.
Mathur was in charge of BJP’s Maharashtra unit in 2014. The BJP leader said, “We had given a final proposal to Shiv Sena to contest 147 seats and we had decided to contest 127 seats, while we believed that we would win more than 200 seats. (The plan was that) Shiv Sena will have the post of Chief Minister, while the BJP will have Deputy Chief Minister.
Fadnavis said without naming anyone, “We were told that” Yuvraj ‘has announced to contest 151 seats and he is not ready to withdraw from that number. “He said that it seems that at that time the destiny had planned to make him the Chief Minister of the state. Fadnavis also recalled the conversation with senior BJP leader Amit Shah. He said, “We talked to Amit Shah and told him that we should not be treated like this. He spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I, Shah and Mathur were confident that we could give a tough fight in the 2014 assembly elections. ”
Reacting to Fadnavis’ comments, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader and MP Sanjay Raut said on Tuesday that many things happened. He claimed that senior BJP leaders had already planned to break up with Shiv Sena.
Raut said, “Every seat was discussed for 72 hours. At that time, Om Mathur (BJP’s) was in charge of Maharashtra unit. I will sincerely accept that Fadnavis was in favor of maintaining an alliance with the Shiv Sena. He wanted an alliance but it broke because senior leaders of the party (BJP) wanted so.
Both parties contested the 2014 state assembly elections separately but after the election, Shiv Sena joined hands with BJP. At that time the government was formed under the leadership of Fadnavis. BJP and Shiv Sena (then undivided) resolve again on the issue of sharing the post of Chief Minister after the 2019 assembly elections. The Shiv Sena was divided by a section of MLAs led by Eknath Shinde in 2022 against the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray in 2022.
