MUMBAI: After denial of the home ministry and due space in cabinet expansions, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde arrived in Delhi on Thursday and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Amit Shah in Delhi.
Sources close to Shinde said that rather than giving due respect and share in power, his party, which has 61 MLAs, has been squeezed.
Sources in the know said requesting anonymity: “First, BJP denied Eknath Shinde the top post. Later, it refused to concede the home ministry, and now, Shiv Sena is struggling to get the guardian ministry of Thane, Sambhaji Nagar, Nasik, and Kolhapur districts.
Therefore, Eknath Shinde’s meeting with top leaders of the BJP is very important and crucial. He has an excellent rapport developed in his previous 2.5 years in government. He may have aired and shared the current political situations with the BJP leaders for solutions.”
They said the BJP was the single largest party with 132 seats in the state, but the alliance partners were equally responsible for the stability of the government. “We got the massive mandate that has to be respected; otherwise, it will go to waste.”
However, Shinde termed the meetings courtesy calls after the NDA alliance registered a landslide victory in the Maharashtra state assembly polls.
He issued a sanitised statement to the media: “When I was chief minister of Maharashtra in the last 2.5 years, we showed how public-related work should be done. The way the people of Maharashtra voted us back into power shows they reposed faith in us. The central government is with us. The new innings under the leadership of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has started. Maharashtra has huge potential and capacity to develop.”
In a bid to obliquely explain the situation in the state, the sources referred to the Beed Sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh murder case and said the accused and mastermind, Walmik Karad, was yet to be arrested. “There is anger among the Maratha community for this reason.
If justice is not meted out to the deceased Santosh Deshmukh and his family, then it will send the wrong message.” Besides, “welfare schemes like Ladli Bahin should continue, and promises of increasing the amount from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,100 per month should be honoured”, they said, adding: “It will send a positive message to those women who massively voted for Mahayuti.”