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As Maharashtra moves beyond the ballot battle into a Game of Thrones with the Mahayuti, a celebratory get-together at Varsha — the Chief Minister official residence — may be sending out a chair message.

As the NDA inched towards a massive mandate, Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar reached Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s residence to congratulate him on the poll victory.

The leaders sat at Varsha, exchanging greetings and smiles, and one sight was unmissable. Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis sat on identical high-back chairs, Ajit Pawar and Union Minister Ramdas Athawale sat beside them in smaller chairs.

While this may be a pure coincidence, its timing could not have been better. Mr Shinde holds the Chief Minister seat after his rebellion that split the Shiv Sena and brought the BJP back to power in the politically-significant state. After the 2022 rebellion, despite being the big brother in the alliance, the BJP let Mr Shinde take the top post and took a moral high ground. Later, Ajit Pawar led a mutiny that divided the NCP and the rebel MLAs joined the ruling alliance. A former Chief Minister and the tallest BJP leader in Maharashtra, Mr Fadnavis accepted the Number 2 post in the government, albeit grudgingly.

Cut to 2024 and the BJP’s all-time best performance is the anchor in NDA’s Maharashtra sweep. The BJP has won 130 out of the 148 seats it contested — a strike rate of nearly 90 per cent. The Shinde Sena has won 54 seats and the Ajit Pawar’s NCP 41.

The BJP is likely to stake a claim to the top post. And thanks to its stellar show, it needs only one of its two allies to back it to go past the magic figure in the 288-member Assembly. Mr Shinde and Mr Fadnavis maintained that a decision on the Chief Minister post will be taken at a meeting of the allies. But BJP’s strong score gives it considerable leverage and the allies may have to find joy in ministerial berths.

Against this backdrop, the identical chairs occupied by Mr Shinde and Mr Fadnavis send a silent message. Ajit Pawar’s smaller chair suggests that he will remain the small brother in the alliance.

The three allies, however, put up a united front after the win. Mr Shinde, Mr Fadnavis and Mr Pawar sat side by side as they addressed the media and detailed the factors behind the NDA’s big victory. Chief Minister Shinde sat in the middle, with his two deputies Mr Fadnavis and Mr Pawar flanking him. 

The election has been won, but the BJP has its hands full as it negotiates the Game of Thrones that will begin now and asserts its supremacy while balancing the alliance dharma.

The result of the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly election settled – the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance has all but sealed a thumping victory over the Congress’ Maha Vikas Aghadi combine – the focus is now on who will succeed Eknath Shinde as Chief Minister.

Speaking to reporters Saturday evening, the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis – a two-time holder of that post (even if the second was a matter of days only) – offered some insight into that vexed query, declaring a decision had already been taken. Alliance leaders, he said, had been instructed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the Chief Minister will be selected after a consultation between all.

“There will be no dispute about who will be the Chief Minister… it was decided from day one that, after the election, the leaders of the three parties will sit together and decide this,” he stressed.

“The decision will be acceptable to everyone, there is no dispute on this,” he said, aware, no doubt, that supporters of chief ministerial hopefuls have already begun jockeying for their favourites.

#WATCH | Mumbai | When asked who will be the next CM of Maharashtra, Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis says, “There will be no dispute on the CM’s face. It was decided from day one that after the elections, the leaders of the three parties will sit together and decide on… pic.twitter.com/wfI6nqhN8F

— ANI (@ANI) November 23, 2024

As an aside, Mr Fadnavis said in 2019 (after his blink-and-you-miss-it) second stint, that he would return to claim it for a third time. In any case, the toe-the-party line response now echoed that by outgoing Chief Minister Shinde, who was installed in the post after the 2022 Shiv Sena rebellion.

Mr Shinde led over 40 Sena MLAs into the BJP’s fold in 2022, a move that forced undivided Sena boss Uddhav Thackeray to step down as Chief Minister and his MVA government to fall.

READ | E Shinde Asked Chief Minister Question. His Cautious Reply

“Let the final results come… the same way as we fought elections together, all three parties will sit together and take a decision,” Mr Shinde, who defended his Kopri-Pachpakhadi seat, said.

Who Will Be Next Chief Minister?

On paper it will be a straight fight between Mr Fadnavis and Mr Shinde.

The BJP is set for its best ever showing in a Maharashtra Assembly election but will, most likely, fall agonisingly short of the 145-seat majority mark without the Shinde Sena’s support.

Eknath Shinde will be aware of this fact, and that it signals a replay of 2019.

READ | E Shinde Now Where Uddhav Was In ’19, With Big Difference

Five years ago, Uddhav Thackeray broke ties with the BJP after being denied, he felt, a rotational chief ministerial formula. The undivided Sena won only 56 seats to the BJP’s 105 but then, as now, the saffron party needed its ideological partner to get over the finishing line.

And now, as then, Mr Shinde may feel he can push the BJP to his advantage.

The problem, though, is that now the BJP also has Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction, and its 40 seats, in its pocket. Mr Pawar is an outgoing Deputy Chief Minister and could be persuaded to retain that and back a BJP Chief Minister.

There is, of course, another option entirely.

The BJP could go off-script and selected someone else as Chief Minister, a tactic it used last year in Madhya Pradesh when veteran leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan was dropped, despite leading the party to a big victory, in favour of the then-unknown Mohan Yadav.

That switch, however, was with caste equations in mind before the April-June federal election.

READ | “Jharkhand Poll Fair But If We…”: D Fadnavis On EVM Complaints

Meanwhile, Mr Fadnavis also took a swipe at Thackeray Sena leader Sanjay Raut over his complaints about faulty EVMs, or electronic voting machines.”Democracy has won there.. but if we get a huge victory in Maharashtra… then Election Commission is ‘biased’ and EVMs are ‘hacked’,” he lamented.

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