With the scheduled swearing-in of Devendra Fadnavis as Maharashtra's Chief Minister and Eknath Shinde as one of his deputies, the other one being Ajit Pawar, the journey of Maharashtra politics beginning with the dramatic events of 2019 has come a full circle for the BJP and the Shiv Sena, albeit with their bargaining powers getting swapped.
In the process, the BJP has not only virtually seized control of most of the saffron space in the state's politics - something it was always working at by chipping away at the original Sena's saffron constituency - but has also paved the way to render Shinde Sena a toothless saffron tiger that will be safe only as long as it remains in its captivity.
While the BJP kept targeting Uddhav-led Shiv Sena for abandoning Hindutva, it was actually happy within that he had shifted to appear a Muslim-friendly secular party, thereby, leaving the saffron space it once occupied vulnerable to seizure.
Having got rid of Uddhav, the only other claimant, and hence a competitor too, left in Maharashtra's saffron constituency is Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.
In 2019, it was the undivided Sena whose fortune was tied up with the BJP in a 25-year alliance that had seen the former getting demoted from being the big brother.
In 2024, the Shinde faction of the Sena, born out of the BJP-engineered split in the original Sena headed by Uddhav Thackeray, is finding itself in the same position as its original avatar vis-a-vis the BJP.
Being the smaller partner, it is forced to play second fiddle to the BJP in the new government that is set to assume power in the state.
Actually, Shinde has to deal with the BJP with a much depleted bargaining power now than Uddhav had in 2019, when the latter broke ties with the BJP and even formed a government by forging alliance with strange bedfellows Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Sharad Pawar and the Congress.
Having come tantalisingly close to majority with its record haul of 132 seats in Maharashtra Assembly, the BJP can afford to cold-shoulder Shinde Sena, unlike in 2019, when it had to eat humble pie after being dumped by Uddhav-led Sena.
Also to the BJP's advantage is the unconditional support from the 41-strong NCP led by Ajit Pawar, who readily agreed to be Fadnavis's deputy.
The BJP can thus do without Shinde should the latter decide to ditch it.
Clearly, in less than two-and-a-half years, the BJP has managed to reduce Uddhav Sena to a non-entity and Shinde faction to bring a virtually lame duck partner that must either unconditionally tag along or be left in the lurch.
Shinde did try to flex muscles but to no avail. He realised he has nowhere else to go.
The huge scale of political upheavals in the last five years in the state has decisively brought one major change - the Shiv Sena as a whole - Uddhav and Shinde factions together - has lost its pivotal role in Right-wing politics.
The BJP has come to snatch that away from it with its brutally unconventional brand of politics.
Arrogating the entire saffron space to itself is exactly what the BJP always wanted to do. And reducing Shiv Sena to being a non-entity was always central to that project.
The interesting part of the story now lies with the Shinde Sena. Where is it headed in the future? Will it survive or meet the same fate as the Opposition parties?
Going by the current direction of state politics, it is hard to see Shinde and his Sena equipped to hold on to its political nerve.
The reasons are not far to seek.
First and foremost, to be in power, it is bound to remain at BJP's mercy.
The BJP can give it matching orders anytime because it has Ajit Pawar as a solid back-up, apart from the fact that it can always muster the majority by winning over MLAs from the weakest ever Opposition in Maharashatra's history.
So, Shinde will possibly do nothing to force the BJP to shun political niceties and push it out of alliance.
But the arrangement works as long as the BJP desires. Given the BJP's propensity to aggregate the whole power pie to itself, Shinde Sena will have only one of the two choices to make - keep propitiating BJP or chart its own course.
Whether Shinde Sena remains with the BJP without any bargaining power, as the situation of today is, or if it decides to go it alone at some point of time in future, it will more likely find it hard to survive, let alone making it big.
This is for the simple reason that BJP's current bonhomie with it is purely transactional and, as such, its attempt would be to be on its own rather than depend on any alliance partner.
To be sure, like Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, it would rather prefer to go with a non-saffron partner like Ajit Pawar than share the saffron space with anyone.
But if Shinde decides to be his independent self, it will have to compete with the BJP for the saffron space and will hence run the risk of being targeted by the latter. This will virtually reduce it to be an opposition party for the BJP.
All in all, Shinde is clearly staring at a future that has little to offer to him to be a force to reckon with.
The question, therefore, is: what happens to Shinde now? Will he survive or perish?
In his over 30 months as CM, he did show the promise of being able to prove his political mettle. He did craftily manoeuvre his way from being an easily enticeable politician to being a hard nut to crack.
The big question is if he can deploy his hidden talent to carve out his own niche or just go down in Maharashtra's political history as a shooting star.
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