The ruling BJP in Maharashtra appears to be favouring ally NCP, led by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar over its other ally, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
A committee set up by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to investigate a land scam in Pune, where government land worth Rs 1,800crore was reportedly sold for a mere Rs 300 crore to a company, reportedly could not establish any direct link between the deal and Parth Pawar, the son of deputy chief minister Ajit.
The development, which some political analysts see as an olive branch to the NCP, comes at a time when the other ally in the Mahayuti government, Shinde’s Shiv Sena, is fuming over alleged poaching of its leaders by the big brother BJP.
The acrimony between the two sides has reached such a stage that Shinde and the other ministers from his party skipped a key cabinet meeting held on Tuesday.
The Shinde faction leaders have accused the BJP of trying to finish the party, a charge that made it to the Congress’s campaign in the just-concluded Bihar Assembly polls. Several Congress leaders had claimed that the incumbent chief minister, Nitish Kumar, and his party would meet the same fate as that of the Shiv Sena.
A report published in Rediff.com on Wednesday said the MLAs who owe their allegiance to Shinde are fuming against the BJP claiming the Sena ministers were humiliated, funds for their departments and constituencies delayed or withheld and retired bureaucrats close to the chief minister re-inducted into the administration.
“We carried them to power. We took the heat… we stood up in the hot sun. Now they behave as if we are expendable,” an unnamed MLA from Shinde’s party told Rediff.com.
The Shinde faction MLAs alleged the departments allotted to ministers from their party were being run by “outsiders.”
In June 2022, Shinde had single-handedly toppled the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Agadhi government after engineering a split in the Sena. Shinde went on to become the chief minister and continued till last year’s Assembly polls, after which Fadnavis took oath as CM, while Shinde was appointed as one of his two deputies.
In the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, the BJP emerged the single largest party with 132 seats, while Shinde’s Sena got 57 seats and Ajit Pawar’s NCP got 41 seats.
Many saw Parth Pawar’s name being kept out from the land deal report as a way to keep Ajit Pawar and his 40 MLAs satisfied.
Arithmetically, the BJP is firmly in the seat of power in the Mumbai Sachivalaya.
Ahead of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting over 13 Sena (Shinde) leaders in the Dombivli region joined the BJP. When four Sena ministers met Fadnavis to ask about the poaching of their leaders, the CM countered that the Sena had done the same in Ulhasnagar.
The cracks in the Mahayuti have appeared while the state is readying for elections to 246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats in the first phase to be held on 2 December.
In two other phases, the dates for which are yet to be announced, 32 Zilla Parishads, 336 panchayat samitis and 29 municipal corporations, including India’s richest civic body the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, will go to polls.
After the dismal performance by the MVA in last year’s Assembly polls, the Opposition too is in disarray. Former chief minister Uddhav and his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray have buried the hatchet and have joined forces, though much weakened.
While the government is comfortably placed, whether the BJP can ignore Shinde’s clout in Thane, Kalyan, Dombivli and Navi Mumbai is unclear. In the last Assembly polls, Shinde bagged six out of the 15 seats it contested in Mumbai in the Assembly polls.
