In the past month since the election results were announced on 23 November, Mahayuti leaders have made a series of trips to Delhi for meetings with BJP leaders, underscoring the central role of the BJP in the entire cabinet formation process.

In a clear sign of the BJP’s influence, heavyweights from the Shinde-led Sena and the Ajit-led NCP were dropped because the Mahayuti wanted to avoid controversial ministers. However, Nitesh Rane, a new minister embroiled in multiple controversies, was taken on board by the BJP.

The party’s domination was also clear from the allocation of portfolios. While Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar got significant departments, their parties, especially the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, got less than they had expected.

Many of their party leaders are miffed over being marginalised.

On Monday, the NCP’s Chhagan Bhujbal, a minister from the erstwhile Shinde-led Mahayuti government who was dropped from the cabinet this time, met Fadnavis at his official residence in Mumbai to express his resentment. His nephew, Sameer Bhujbal, was also present.

Bhujbal has not met or spoken with his own party leader, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

Bhujbal, an OBC leader, told reporters after the meeting that the OBC community was upset with the government’s decision not to include him in the cabinet.

“Devendra Fadnavis accepted that the OBC community had a major role to play in the Mahayuti’s victory in this election and that I should wait for a few days. He will come up with some solution,” Bhujbal said.

Deputy CM Ajit Pawar spoke to reporters in Pune but did not comment on Bhujbal’s resentment, or the meeting, saying it was the party’s internal matter.

“It is very obviously seen that the government is going to run with the BJP’s dominance and the party will want to have it no other way in order to consolidate its hold on Maharashtra,” Sanjay Patil, a researcher at Mumbai University’s politics and civics department, told ThePrint. “This government will be completely different from the former Shinde-led Mahayuti government. It will have a complete stamp of Devendra Fadnavis. He will not let this opportunity slip.”

However, political analysts also say that despite its thundering majority, the BJP cannot afford to sideline its allies just yet. It has to partially give in to their demands.

Also read: From PMO to Maharashtra CMO, how IAS Shrikar Pardeshi became Fadnavis’s administrative right hand

Fadnavis stamp on portfolio allocation

The Maharashtra government induced 39 new cabinet ministers—19 from the BJP, 11 from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and nine from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP—on 15 December. The newly sworn-in ministers were, however, allocated portfolios only on 21 December.

The Shinde-led Shiv Sena was initially insistent on the state home portfolio, which Fadnavis wanted to keep with himself. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena also wanted the post of the chairman of the state legislative council, which the BJP was unwilling to part with.

The post had been vacant since July 2022 when the term of the incumbent Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar from the NCP expired. Fadnavis succeeded in retaining both.

As CM, Fadnavis will hold the home, energy, law and judiciary, general administration, and information and publicity portfolio.

While former CM Shinde had to let the home portfolio go, he bargained hard for major infrastructure-related portfolios such as urban development, housing and public works (public enterprises), which involves the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC).

A leader from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena also said that his party’s bargaining power stemmed from the BJP’s need to counter the criticism that it uses regional players to grow on their back and then discards them once it achieves its political objectives.

While the BJP numerically doesn’t need the support of its allies in the state beyond a point after winning 132 of Maharashtra’s 288 seats, the party needs the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, which has seven MPs, at the Centre.

Deputy CM Ajit Pawar has kept finance, planning and state excise with himself.

“Fadnavis has ensured that the three main leaders of the government—himself, Shinde and Ajit Pawar—have kept all major portfolios with themselves,” said Mumbai University’s Patil.

“Another important portfolio, revenue, has also gone to Chandrashekhar Bawankule, known to be close to Fadnavis. He has not let power concentrate in the hands of any individual minister.”

Departments that were earlier combined have been split and allotted to ministers, limiting their roles. For example, the water resources portfolio—which used to include Godavari, Krishna Valley, Vidarbha Tapi and Konkan regions—has been split between Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and Girish Mahajan.

The portfolios of cooperation and marketing used to be traditionally kept together, but this time, cooperation is with the NCP’s Balasaheb Patil, while marketing is with the BJP’s Jaykumar Rawal.

Mahayuti sources said that Fadnavis also wants to vet the personal staff that ministers decide to bring on board to avoid any controversial names.

The flurry of visits to Delhi

Nitin Birmal, associate professor at Pune’s Dr Ambedkar College of Arts and Commerce, said that the entire picture about the power equation among the allies is still not completely clear, and local body polls expected to be held next year across cities in Maharashtra could be a crucial factor.

“While the BJP won significantly more seats, it still has a vote share of only 26.7 percent as against the Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s and the NCP’s combined vote share of about 22 percent,” Birmal said.

“The BJP has its eye on the civic bodies of Mumbai and Thane that are economic power centres. The BJP will have to depend on Eknath Shinde for it, and Shinde will have to see to what extent he is willing to compromise to go with the BJP.”

Birmal added that as of now all three parties are cautiously eyeing each other.

Shinde—who has a strong hold over Thane, his home turf, and a considerable following in Mumbai too—draws his bargaining power from this base. This was evident from the time of the election results until the swearing-in of cabinet ministers.

After the Maharashtra election results, it took a fortnight for the Mahayuti to name its chief ministerial candidate and stake its claim to the government. It took another 10 days to decide the names of cabinet ministers and another week to allocate portfolios.

While Ajit Pawar gave his support to Fadnavis as chief minister right after the elections, the Shinde Sena had its eye on the chair, arguing that the victory was for incumbency, and the previous government was led by his party.

The deadlock was solved only after a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi where Shinde was unequivocally told that the next CM would be from the BJP.

A visibly upset Shinde had proceeded to his village Dare in Satara district, saying he was unwell.

A few days after the swearing-in ceremony on 5 December—where Fadnavis took oath as CM and Ajit Pawar and Shinde as his deputies—the three leaders were to once again visit the BJP leadership in Delhi to hammer out the list of cabinet ministers and portfolio distribution. Shinde skipped the Delhi visit.

When the list of ministers was eventually finalised, the BJP leadership had told both parties to drop non-performing ministers and those who had stirred controversies within the Mahayuti, a senior NCP leader had told ThePrint.

The Shinde-led Shiv Sena dropped ministers such as Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar and Deepak Kesarkar, while the Ajit Pawar-led NCP dropped heavyweights such as Chhagan Bhujbal and Dilip Walse Patil, among others.

However, the BJP inducted the controversial Nitesh Rane, former CM Narayan Rane’s son, who faces multiple FIRs for his alleged communal comments. He had stirred a major political controversy in September this year with his remarks about “entering mosques and hunting down Muslims”.

Kesarkar, a former minister from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, however maintained that there is no dominance of any one party within the BJP and every party has taken its own decisions.

“Every party will have its demands and has the right to voice them. Our demand as Shiv Sena was that Shinde saheb had worked hard for the Mahayuti to win this election and there should be due recognition given to him. All the decisions that were taken were by Mahayuti leaders on one platform,” he said.

(Edited by Sugita Katyal)

Also read: With caste and political arithmetic in mind, how Fadnavis has been building up MLC Ram Shinde