In veiled attack on Uddhav, Shinde says ‘issue of sharing CM’s post with BJP…’
After the 2019 election, Uddhav Thackeray broke the Sena’s decades-old ties with the BJP stating the ally had reneged on its promise of sharing the chief minister's post, a contention denied by the saffron party.
Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday launched a fresh, but veiled attack on his former boss Uddhav Thackeray stating that the issue of sharing the chief minister's post with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the 2019 Assembly election in the western state could have been resolved through talks.
"Some people said the Shiv Sena should get the post of the chief minister for the first two-and-a-half years. (And if this condition is agreed to) only then talks between the two parties (Sena and BJP) for forming a government could proceed," Shinde said, while addressing a rally in the state's Sambhaji Nagar district (formerly Aurangabad), news agency PTI reported.
Shinde, who led a rebellion against Thackeray leading to the latter’s resignation as Maharashtra chief minister in June, said some people took an adamant stand after the assembly election which implied that they did not want to form a government with the BJP despite both the parties winning the people's mandate and resolving the issue of the post of the chief minister.
"Soon after the poll results, some people started speaking about different options available. MLAs of the Shiv Sena were not in favour of an alliance with the Congress and NCP," Shinde further said.
After the 2019 election, Thackeray broke the Sena’s decades-old ties with the BJP stating the ally had reneged on its promise of sharing the chief minister's post, a contention denied by the saffron party.
Thackeray's party then joined hands with Congress and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance to form a coalition government in the state.
Thackeray then became the chief minister and NCP leader and Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar became the deputy chief minister.
Shinde said that while the NCP and the Congress were growing stronger in the alliance, the Shiv Sena, which is heading the governing bloc, was getting systematically weakened.
A majority of Sena MLAs joined the faction led by Shinde, resulting in the collapse of the MVA government. The Shinde faction then officially joined hands with the BJP to form the new government with Shinde as the chief minister and BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy.
(With agency inputs)
