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It has been seen during the election campaign that while the Mahayuti alliance maintained silence over the CM choice, the BJP hoardings prominently displayed the picture of Fadnavis who had to settle for the deputy CM post in 2022.
Jostling has begun on who will be the Maharashtra CM. (Image: PTI)
Maharashtra election results are a day away, but jostling has already begun in both the Mahayuti and Maha Vikas Aghadi camps on who will be the Chief Minister if their alliance wins.
The state BJP chief, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, has said that his party workers wish to see Devendra Fadnavis as the next Chief Minister while Eknath Shinde’s supporters would want Shinde to be CM. “The three parties will sit after the results and decide,” he said. BJP has contested the most number of seats in these elections (152) and expects to finish as the single-largest party with close to 100 seats. It has been seen during the election campaign that while the Mahayuti alliance maintained silence over the CM choice, the BJP hoardings prominently displayed the picture of Fadnavis who had to settle for the deputy CM post in 2022.
A few MLAs of the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) group, like Sanjay Shirsat, however, said Shinde would continue as the CM as he was extremely popular and it was his right to remain at the post. Shinde, during the election campaign, has maintained that there is “no tussle” inside the Mahayuti camp on the CM face and that the call would be taken after the results are out. Most exit polls have predicted a win for the Mahayuti in the state.
On the other hand, the Maha Vikas Aghadi camp saw state Congress chief Nana Patole say the government would be formed under the leadership of the Congress party, implying the CM would be from the Congress, which is contesting the most number of seats (102) among the Aghadi allies. Later in the day, however, Patole did a u-turn on his comment and said the High Command would be taking that decision.
The u-turn came after Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut objected to Patole’s remarks and asked if Patole had the Congress High Command’s nod to make such a comment, as “no one else would accept it”. Aditya Thackeray had earlier told News18 that his father and the former chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, was the most popular choice in the Maha Vikas Aghadi camp for the job after the elections.
