Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 | Amid speculation over CM post, Shiv Sena MPs meet Amit Shah in Delhi

New Delhi: Even as Eknath Shinde expressed the Shiv Sena’s support to the BJP in Maharashtra during a press conference at Thane on Wednesday, the party’s MPs met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Parliament, as the BJP finalises power sharing arrangements with its allies.

On Thursday, Shinde, NCP’s Ajit Pawar and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis are set to meet Prime Minister Modi as well as Shah.

Union Minister Prataprao Jadhav and the party’s Lok Sabha MPs Naresh Mhaske, Ravindra Waikar, Sandipan Bhumare, Shrirang Appa Barne, and Dhairyasheel Mane, Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora, and former Lok Sabha MP Rahul Shewale were part of the Shiv Sena delegation that met Shah in Parliament.

After the meeting, Mane told reporters that they went to extend their gratitude to the home minister for the BJP’s help to its allies in election management, and for campaigning in some of the seats that Sena fought in. “The Maha Yuti has returned to power with a thumping majority. This shows that the people were happy with the alliance’s work in the past 2.5 years,” Mane said.

Despite winning the elections with a majority, where the alliance bagged 235 of the assembly’s 288 seats, the BJP and the Shiv Sena have been in the midst of an impasse with respect to the chief ministerial post.

With the BJP alone winning 132 seats, the bargaining chip of the Shiv Sena (with 57 seats) has been marginal. The Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has offered support to the BJP with 41 seats.

The impasse ended on Wednesday with Shinde stating that the Shiv Sena will support the BJP’s decision on the chief ministerial post, even when his party leaders were pointing at the situation in Bihar where chief minister Nitish Kumar belonged to the junior partner.

The BJP is likely to offer the position to Fadnavis, who landed in Delhi on Wednesday. Sources in the BJP said that it was close to majority on its own with some independents and smaller parties extending it support, with one leader stating that the party could manage 137-138 on its own – a few seats short of the 145 needed to form the government in the state.

Maharashtra Assembly poll 2024 results | Check constituency results here

Jharkhand Assembly poll 2024 results | Check constituency results here

Bypoll 2024 results | Check Karnataka results here

Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls took place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP went up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress tried to make their mark. Maha Yuti are currently comfortably poised to win. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faced a challenge after Hemant Soren's arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP, but look set to retain power with its I.N.D.I.A. allies. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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