Devendra Fadnavis elected BJP legislative party leader; CM thanks Uddhav Thackeray for support during Maharashtra Assembly polls

Incumbent chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis was elected the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislative party leader in a party meeting held in Mumbai on Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_7574331” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. Twitter/@ANI[/caption] Speaking after being chosen the legislature party leader, Fadnavis thanked Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray for his support during the Maharashtra Assembly polls . He also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and gave an assurance that a government will be formed soon. He dubbed the rumours of an ‘alternate formula’ being worked out to form the state government as “entertainment”. “The mandate of voters of Maharashtra is for the ‘Mahayuti’ (BJP-Shiv Sena alliance). Hence the ‘Mahayuti’ is going to form its government soon in the state,” Fadnavis said while addressing the newly-elected BJP MLAs at the state legislature party meeting. Fadnavis pointed out that since 1995, no party in the state had won more than 75 seats in polls to the 288-member Assembly, till the BJP bagged 122 seats in 2014. In the recently-concluded polls, the saffron party won 105 seats. While moving the motion to elect Fadnavis as Leader of the House, BJP state president Chandrakant Patil said, “In the last five years, no faction in the BJP ever went to Delhi and requested that Fadnavis be replaced.” “There were protests and agitations (in the state) in last five years, but no one said Fadnavis should resign. This indicates his skills and acceptability across the state,” Patil said. The power tussle between the BJP and Shiv Sena, partners in the coalition government in the state, began soon after the results of the Assembly election were announced on 24 October. Leaders of both the parties have provided arguments and counter-arguments in support of their demands. BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar on Tuesday also said that the Assembly election mandate was for the mahayuti alliance and asserted that his party too had various options open before it to form government. This was two days after the Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut said his party should not be compelled to look for an alternative to form the next government and asserted there are “no saints in politics”.

Meanwhile, Patil said BJP chief Amit Shah and Uddhav will finalise the contours of the “50:50 formula”. Amid the ongoing tussle over the 50:50 power-sharing formula for the next government in Maharashtra, Fadnavis had dismissed the Sena’s demand for the top post on a rotational basis and asserted on Tuesday that he will be the chief minister for another five years. Since the Assembly election results, Uddhav has been claiming that a 50-50 formula was decided between the two parties and also demanded a written assurance from the BJP that it will implement the alliance formula. The BJP emerged as the single largest party in the recently-concluded Maharashtra Assembly polls by winning 105 seats. However, the figure was much below the halfway mark of 145 in the 288-member House. The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress bagged 56, 54 and 44 seats, respectively.