Athawale dishes advice to ‘sulking’ Shinde ahead of key BJP meet

New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) Amid the long-drawn suspense over the Mahayuti’s choice of Chief Minister for Maharashtra, Union Minister and NDA leader Ramdas Athawale on Tuesday dished out some advice to the ‘sulking’ Shiv Sena (SS) chief Eknath Shinde.

He proposed a top position for the SS chief in the Mahayuti in order to reach a consensus on government formation in Maharashtra.

The Republican Party of India (Athawale) chief said that Eknath Shinde has been upset over losing his claim for the Chief Minister’s chair and also asked the caretaker CM to accept the reality, rather than procrastinating.

Speaking to IANS, the Union Minister stated that Devendra Fadnavis was likely to be the next Maharashtra CM and also asked Shinde to drop his insistence for the CM’s chair.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have the authority to take the final call but the BJP legislature party meeting on December 4 will elect its leader and Devendra Fadnavis is likely to get unanimous support,” he said.

“Fadnavis has been Maharashtra CM before and he has also served as Deputy CM. He maintains good and cordial ties with fellow legislators. All these factors weigh in his favour,” Athawale explained.

On Eknath Shinde’s resistance to joining the Mahayuti government, he said that the SS chief believes that he has done good work in the past 2.5 years and hence deserves another chance to take it forward.

“The BJP high command’s refusal to grant him the CM’s chair, again, is the reason behind Shinde’s reluctance,” he explained.

Further, giving advice to break the impasse, he said that Shinde could be given two choices – either a Cabinet berth at the Centre or the Mahayuti’s chairman.

“Since he doesn’t want to move out of Maharashtra, the latter would suit him well,” he said.

Notably, it has been ten days since the Mahayuti comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP-SP won a massive mandate but government formation has hit a roadblock owing to a fight over the CM’s post.

Eknath Shinde has often spoken about his party’s readiness to agree to the BJP’s demands and went on stating that any decision taken by PM Modi, HM Shah would be acceptable to him, but the talks regarding government formation never took off.

The meetings of the Mahayuti to discuss distribution of portfolios and Cabinet berths got repeatedly cancelled for one reason or another.

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