Fadnavis shares inside story of Shiv Sena-BJP alliance breakup in 2014: 'Yuvraj unwilling to compromise'

Fadnavis said the alliance broke when Shiv Sena was unwilling to budge on their seat demands.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for the first time has revealed the inside story of how the alliance between BJP and Shiv Sena crumbled in 2014.

According to the CM, seat-sharing disagreements were the primary reason behind the fallout with Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.

"When the talks of alliance started, the Shiv Sena of that time had decided in its mind that it had to contest only 151 seats. Whereas our proposal was that we would contest on 127 seats and Shiv Sena would contest on 147 seats, we would give the remaining seats to our smaller alliance partners," he said. Fadnavis was speaking at the felicitation ceremony of Sikkim Governor Om Prakash Mathur.

The CM said the alliance broke when Shiv Sena was unwilling to budge on their seat demands.

He said the decisions were made by the BJP's central leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, after BJP leaders, including Om Prakash Mathur, escalated the matter to them.

"Home Minister Amit Shah spoke to the Prime Minister, and it was decided that the alliance could continue only if the formula was 127 for BJP and 147 for Shiv Sena," Fadnavis said.

"I had faith in Amit Shah and Om Prakash Mathur. We were confident that we could win, but the rest of the party was not as optimistic. We gave an ultimatum to Shiv Sena that if you are going to fight on 147, we are with you. We will fight on 127 seats. Both parties will benefit and get elected together," Fadnavis said.

The CM said Uddhav Thackeray rejected the proposal and firmly stood by his demand of 151 seats. “But it seems the law of destiny had other plans – I was meant to become the Chief Minister,” he said.

Fadnavis said the BJP had proposed a power-sharing arrangement where Shiv Sena would retain the chief minister's post. However, according to him, Shiv Sena was unwilling to compromise . "Due to this reason, the matter could not move forward even though we explained to them a lot that we would contest on 127, and you contest on 147, you would have the chief minister, and we would have the deputy chief minister... They were not ready to have a settlement...," he said.

Equating the fight to that of Mahabharata, he said that the "Yuvraj" of Shiv Sena said not a single seat would be reduced from 151. "They came as Kauravas who will not give us five villages. But, we had Shri Krishna with us. A battle took place, I was campaigning with the support of Om Prakash Mathur and Amit Shah. We had the credibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bank on. For the first time, we contested in all 260 seats. Before that, we never fielded candidates in more than 117 seats," he said.

The Mahayuti alliance secured a landslide victory in the recently held Maharashtra assembly elections, winning 230 out of 288 seats.