With the BJP still unable to formalise the appointment of a Chief Minister five days after it emerged as the single largest party in recently held Assembly polls, caretaker CM's visit to the national capital on Tuesday created a flutter.
Pramod Sawant was the state's chief minister from 2019 to 2022 and led the party's election campaign, but the party has so far failed to formally anoint him as the leader of the ruling party's legislature wing.
On Tuesday, after the newly elected legislators were administered oath of office by pro-tem Speaker and BJP MLA Ganesh Gaonkar, Sawant told reporters that he was heading for Delhi to meet BJP national president J P Nadda. "I am going to Delhi to meet the party president," Sawant told reporters.
According to BJP sources, during his Delhi visit, Sawant would be accompanied by state Bharatiya Janata Party president Sadanand Shet Tanavade and the two top state BJP officials would be finalising the party's chief ministerial candidate in consultation with the party's high command.
Earlier in the day, Deviya Rane, a newly elected MLA and the wife of Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, another claimant to the chief minister's chair created a flutter, when she said that like all elected legislators, her husband too was ready to accept the top political seat.
"Of course, any elected representative can be ready and he is a very experienced politician for the last 15 years. But the final decision is of the central committee," Deviya Rane told reporters.
She, however, said that there was no dissent over the choice of chief minister within the BJP, adding that the decision was left to the party high command.
Deviya Rane, however, said that reports about camps in the BJP over the choice of chief minister were a creation of the media. Rane and Sawant have shared a blow-hot-blow-cold feud over the last few years and bouts of public sparring between the two have left the party red-faced.
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