Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday reiterated that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) never promised to give the Maharashtra Chief Minister's post to then ally Shiv Sena after the 2019 Assembly elections.
"You did rally with me & Modi ji. We said Devendra Fadnavis is our leader & CM face, why didn't you say anything then? There wasn't any promise or talks," said Shah in Sindhudurg.
"Some people here say we made promises in a closed room, it's not true. Let's assume promise was made. Uddhav ji, all your candidates campaigned with 2.5 times bigger image of Modi ji on banners & you asked for votes in his name," the Home Minister added.
Shah further said Uddhav junked the principles of late Balasaheb Thackeray and became the Chief Minister.
"In greed of power, he had put all principles of Balasaheb in Tapi river & took over the power," he said. "They violated the sacred public mandate which was in favour of BJP-Sena and colluded to form the three-party autorickshaw government which is floundering at every step," he added.
For the uninitiated, the BJP had emerged as the single largest party winning 105 seats in the 2019 Assembly elections. Their pre-poll ally Shiv Sena had won 56 seats. However, the Sena repeatedly claimed that the BJP had agreed to share the CM’s post for half the government’s five-year term. Devendra Fadnavis and the BJP rubbished it, and the two parties parted ways. The Sena then joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party (54 seats) and Congress (44 seats), and Uddhav Thackeray was appointed the Chief Minister.
