Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut claimed on Sunday that leaders from both the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not support Eknath Shinde for the chief minister's post in 2019.
Speaking to reporters, Raut stated that senior NCP leaders, including Ajit Pawar, Dilip Walse Patil, and Sunil Tatkare, opposed Shinde's candidature, citing they will not work under a junior and inexperienced person like him.
"Congress and the NCP said they had several senior leaders, and the alliance leader should be someone who is experienced, senior, and can take everyone along," said Raut, a Rajya Sabha member.
Raut further claimed that before the Shiv Sena (then undivided under Uddhav Thackeray) allied with Congress and the NCP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, BJP leaders such as Devendra Fadnavis, Girish Mahajan, and Sudhir Mungantiwar also expressed their reluctance to support Shinde as the chief minister.
"Shinde was already named as the leader of the Shiv Sena legislature party, but the BJP said they would not like Shinde as CM of the alliance," Raut asserted. "Shinde was appointed leader of the legislature party, and he could have been the CM candidate. But no one wanted him," he added.
Raut mentioned that NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi advocated for a leader who had the support of all three parties in the Maha Vikas Aghadi.
Following the 2019 state assembly elections, Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena broke ties with the BJP and joined forces with the NCP and Congress to form the government. In 2022, Shinde led a rebellion against the Sena leadership, resulting in a split within the party. Subsequently, he formed a government with the BJP.
Last year, Ajit Pawar and eight other NCP MLAs joined Shinde's government, causing a division within the NCP, which was founded by Sharad Pawar.
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