I proposed to BJP leadership to make Eknath Shinde Maharastra CM, says Devendra Fadnavis

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he proposed to BJP leadership to make Eknath Shinde, who had rebelled against Shiv Sena leadership, the new chief minister of Maharashtra.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said he had proposed to BJP leadership to make Eknath Shinde, who had rebelled against Shiv Sena leadership, the new chief minister after the collapse of the MVA government last week.Fadnavis also admitted that he was not mentally prepared to assume the post of deputy CM, but changed his decision after a discussion was held with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and intervention by BJP president JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Fadnavis said BJP leadership believed that he should be part of the government as it was not right to run the government through an "extra-constitutional authority".

READ | The message Eknath Shinde sent out in his first speech as CM

He was given a rousing welcome by BJP cadres as he arrived in his hometown Nagpur on his first visit after assuming the charge of his new office.

Talking to reporters here, Fadnavis said the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had won the 2019 elections, but the mandate was “stolen”. So his party and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction came together for a “common ideology and not for power”.

“Our leaders Narendra Modi ji, Amit Shah and J P Naddaji and with my approval (the decision to make Shinde the CM was taken).... It will not be wrong if it is said that I took this proposal (to the BJP leadership) that Shinde is made the chief minister and they (the leadership) accepted it,” Fadnavis said.

Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister on June 30 with Fadnavis as his deputy, a day after Uddhav Thackeray resigned as the CM ahead of the floor test.