Yuva Sena leader Varun Sardesai says party will share CM's post with BJP

In yet another twist in the ongoing cold war between the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Yuva Sena leader Varun Sardesai has claimed that the two parties will get to share the chief minister's post for two-and-half years each after the Assembly polls are concluded later in the year.

Sardesai, is a core committee member of the Yuva Sena, and the maternal cousin of Aaditya Thackeray, who heads the Sena's youth wing.

Earlier, Finance and Forests Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, had claimed that the next chief minister would belong to the BJP. Revenue minister Chandrakant Patil, who is seen at the number two position in the Devendra Fadnavis-led Cabinet, had stressed that while the Sena and BJP would contest 135 each of the 288 seats in the Assembly, their smaller allies would get the other 18.

However, the Sena took umbrage to the statement and pointed out that the BJP expected these smaller parties, namely, the RPI faction led by Ramdas Athavale, Mahadeo Jankar's Rashtriya Samaj Party (RSP), farmer leader Sadabhau Khot's Rayat Kranti, and Vinayak Mete's Shivasangram to contest over its lotus symbol. This in effect means that if elected, these legislators will belong to the BJP.

"Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and BJP President Amit Shah have decided that the chief minister's post will be shared between the two parties for 2.5 years each. People who weren't present for the understanding, shouldn't ruin the alliance for their personal gains," tweeted Sardesai.

A Sena press release read: "There will be no change in what was declared by the Chief Minister (CM) at the time of declaring the alliance." It also denied Mungantiwar's statement.

While Sena leaders claim that the party will get the CM's post after the polls, this has been vehemently denied by senior BJP ministers. "We are demanding that the 288 seats in the Assembly be split equally between us and the BJP. The BJP can set aside Assembly segments from their share for their smaller allies," said a senior Sena leader.

However, a BJP minister noted that in the press conference, where the Sena and BJP's tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls was announced, it was declared that the two parties would contest an equal number of seats after leaving aside a share for the smaller allies.

The Sena, which buried the hatchet with the BJP, and announced an alliance before the Lok Sabha elections, hedged its bets on the BJP getting lesser seats than its tally of 282 in Lok Sabha, which would have helped its allies call the shots. However, the BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi notched up 303 seats, leading to fears in the Sena that the party may now choose to assert itself in Maharashtra before the Assembly polls, admits both Sena and BJP leaders. The BJP- Sena aliance swept 41 of the 48 seats in the state.

In 2014, buoyed by its success in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP snapped its alliance with the Sena for the state Assembly after a tug-of-war over seat-sharing. The party carried on with the Modi wave and emerged as the single-largest with 122 seats, followed by the Sena, its erstwhile senior partner, at a distant 63.

Although the Sena joined the Fadnavis government later, it continued to criticise it and announced they would contest all future polls sans an alliance with the BJP.

In Good Faith

Sardesai is a core committee member of the Yuva Sena and the maternal cousin of Aaditya Thackeray. He said the parties will share the designation for two and a half years each after the Assembly polls get over later in the year