Ajit Pawar’s power play backs Fadnavis for CM post

Mumbai: Ajit Pawar is rooting for fellow Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis to be the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra, sources said.

Ajit Pawar convened a meeting with newly-elected NCP legislators at his residence on Sunday, where he reportedly shared his support for Fadnavis.

On Saturday, sources said that Eknath Shinde staked claim to the Chief Minister’s post, citing the “Ladli bahin” scheme - said to be one of the key drivers of Mahayuti’s stupendous electoral success in Maharashtra - as his brainchild. Ever since the Shiv Sena (then united), joined the NCP and Congress’s Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance and formed a government in 2019, relations between Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde have been fraught.

The genesis of the split in Shiv Sena in 2022 is said to lie in Eknath Shinde’s displeasure over his then-boss Uddhav Thackeray vesting Ajit Pawar with significant authority in the state administration. Thackeray’s infrequent presence at Mantralaya (state secretariat) allowed Ajit Pawar to dominate the bureaucracy. This is said to have led to friction between Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray, ultimately leading the former to break away from the party with a big chunk of the MLAs and form a government with the BJP in 2022.