Maharashtra On The Boil Once Again As Fadnavis And Shinde Spar |
In the history of coalition governments in Maharashtra, it never happened that all ministers belonging to one of the partners in the coalition stayed absent at a state cabinet meeting. This happened at the government headquarters on Tuesday this week! A historic development, as all ministers belonging to the Shiv Sena decided to, reportedly, "boycott" the cabinet meeting. Naturally, the news became sensational. It exposed the cracks in the Mahayuti partners, the BJP and the Shiv Sena, and gave credence to the theory that there was a cold war brewing between Shiv Sena leader and Deputy CM Eknath Shinde and the BJP's top leader in the state, CM Devendra Fadnavis!
A lot of discussion has already happened in the media about the pushes and pulls happening between the Mahayuti alliance partners since the past few months. But it seems things have reached the brink now, as the BJP have not only shown clearly that they are in the driver's seat in the state government but have also started poaching leaders from Eknath Shinde's party in his stronghold of Thane, Kalyan and Dombivli. It is becoming clear that the BJP wants to run its pre-planned agenda of "shata pratishat BhaJaPa" (Hundred Percent BJP) in all forthcoming elections. In his visit to Mumbai over a fortnight ago, Union Home Minister Amit........