Political drama ends, Eknath Shinde to swear in as Deputy Chief Minister

Mumbai: A political drama unfolded in the State in the past couple of weeks. The BJP emerged as the single largest party with 132 seats. However, there was a delay in naming the Chief Minister while Caretaker CM Eknath Shinde announced that he cleared the path for the BJP to name the CM. But he did not commit on his party’s participation in the State Cabinet, which gave rise to speculations that his party wanted Home and other important portfolios. The Maha Yuti was tight-lipped during all this.

However, the BJP held its legislative party’s meeting and elected Devendra Fadnavis as its leader. This cleared the air of uncertainty. It was announced that NCP (AP) President Ajit Pawar would swear in as the DyCM but there was still no confirmation from Eknath Shinde. Finally, Shinde decided to accept the DyCM’s post and the drama ended on Thursday (December 5).

Shiv Sena (BT) leader Uday Samant said, “The Chief Minister and two Deputy Chief Ministers will be sworn in, in the presence of PM Narendra Modi today. All party MLAs requested Eknath Shinde that he would have to accept the DyCM’s post. He honoured sentiments of party workers, Maha Yuti MLAs and Devendra Fadnavis and decided to join the government.

“Later, we went to the residence of Devendra Fadnavis to accept the letter appointing Shinde as his deputy. We handed it over to Principal Secretary Pravin Darade at Raj Bhavan.”

‘There was no deadlock’

Samant said, “There was no deadlock during the process. It was the wish of Devendra Fadnavis, all former ministers and office-bearers of Shiv Sena (BT) that Eknath Shinde should join the government. We requested him to accept the post. Shinde planned to name someone else as the DyCM so that he could tour the State to expand the party. We told him that we did not agree with his plan. Every Shiv sainik wanted to see Eknath Shinde as the DyCM, which he accepted. Therefore, we are thankful to him.”