A day after the Mahayuti leaders’ meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi, caretaker CM Eknath Shinde left for his village Dare Tamb in Mahabaleshwar taluka in Satara district. Sources said the BJP is working on him to get him to accept the deputy CM’s post.
The swearing-in of the Maharashtra cabinet is unlikely until Dec 5 as the talks could only progress after partners agree on the return of BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as CM with nominees of Shiv Sena and NCP as the two deputies.
The swearing-in was earlier expected to be held on Monday. However, the negotiations are unlikely to be wrapped up because of the preoccupation of Amit Shah, who has to balance the competing demands of Mahayuti partners with the DGPs’ conference until Saturday. Sources now expect the oath-taking to be scheduled on Dec 5 at Azad Maidan both because of the tricky nature of Shah’s assignment and the engagements of PM Modi, who is billed to be the star of the show.
The deliberations at Shah’s residence late Thursday night saw outgoing CM Eknath Shinde signing up on the logic that BJP, with 132 MLAs of its own and having lined up another five, was the natural claimant for the CM’s office, sources familiar with the negotiations said.
Maha govt formation meet unlikely before Monday
While Shinde did not spell out whether he would serve as deputy CM along with NCP’s Ajit Pawar, BJP sources remained hopeful of persuading him to be part of a Fadnavis team, with NCP sharing the optimism. There also appears to be an understanding among the partners over the Speaker, an important figure when it comes to coalitions, being a BJP nominee. Significantly, Shinde dropped hints about Sena’s interest in having his nominee as chairperson of the legislative council and BJP, according to sources, did not look averse to acceding to the desire as part of compensation to Shinde.
The appreciation of Shinde’s contribution in Mahayuti’s grand return and the “sacrifice” he is likely to make for the sake of the unity of the alliance will not extend to BJP acquiescing in an insistence for the home department. Fadnavis would get to retain home, while Ajit Pawar is seen as a shoe-in for sixth term as finance minister of the richest and the most industrialised state.
Both Shiv Sena and NCP have argued that the power-sharing arrangement cannot be worked out merely on the basis of mathematics because doing so would, for all practical purposes, mean installing a BJP regime, given that the party’s own numbers are within striking distance of the magic mark of 145. However, unlike a scheme based on numbers where berths are assigned on the basis of who has got how many MLAs, crafting an arrangement expected to be based on abstract considerations like “fairness” and “objectivity” can be difficult, with each partner having notions which may not gel.
In Delhi, Shinde, speaking to the media on Thursday night, said the meeting with Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda, along with his colleagues from the Mahayuti-Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar-was cordial. “The meeting was to discuss govt formation. Today was the first meeting; tomorrow, a second meeting will be held in Mumbai on CM and portfolio allocation. I have already announced Shiv Sena’s support to Mahayuti CM candidate, so that deadlock was resolved,” he said.
When no Mahayuti meeting happened and news came that Shinde would be in the village for the next two days, his colleague Uday Samant told media that Shinde was running a fever the past couple of days and went to his village, to a healthier environment to recuperate.
Asked if Shinde would accept dy CM’s post, Samant said, “We want Shinde Saheb to be in Maharashtra politics, and he should be in govt.” Sources said there is Shani Amavasya on Saturday and Sunday, additional reasons for no action happening.
BJP sources said its elected MLAs have so far not been called to Mumbai to elect the party’s legislative leader. “This meeting is likely to be held on Monday. Thereafter, the legislative heads of the three parties will meet to decide on the CM, Dy CM posts and portfolio allocation,” sources said.
BJP sources said if Fadnavis, a former CM, could be dy CM, then Shinde too could take up the post, adding it would send out a clear message that it is not just BJP netas who have to compromise.