Fadnavis eyes CM's chair if Mahayuti wins election

GAME OF THRONES | BJP sources say the party committed a blunder by handing the chief minister's seat to Eknath Shinde after the split in the Shiv Sena. Will it rectify that mistake and give the post to Fadnavis, the architect of that split, this time around?

- S Balakrishnan

With most of the exit polls predicting a majority for the Mahayuti led by the BJP, the saffron party is preparing to occupy a central position once the results are declared on Saturday.

The main question is who will be the BJP's candidate for chief ministership.

The party had assiduously avoided projecting anyone as the CM candidate and instead preferred to wait for the results to be declared.

However, considerable significance is assigned to Fadnavis' meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at the Sangh's headquarters in Mahal, Nagpur, on Thursday.

Officially, it is being said Fadnavis called on Bhagwat to thank him for the massive voter mobilisation that the Sangh Parivar did during the assembly poll.

Sources in the BJP told the FPJ that in June 2022, the party made a big blunder in agreeing to have Eknath Shinde, the rebel Shiv Sena leader, as the CM.

Fadnavis (54) had played a crucial role behind the scenes in vertically splitting the Shiv Sena and pulling down the Uddhav Thackeray government.

He staged a coup right under the nose of Thackeray by weaning away Shinde and his pack of 36 MLAs.