Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was conspicuously absent during a function held at the state BJP headquarters here on Friday.
The event at the party office in south Mumbai was to celebrate the return to power in Maharashtra after two and a half years after the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government.
Mr Fadnavis, who had announced on Thursday that he would not be a part of New Eknath Shinde-led government But later took oath as Deputy Chief Minister, did not attend the ceremony.
A close aide of the former chief minister said he is busy holding meetings at his residence ahead of the two-day special session of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from July 3.
When asked whether Mr. Fadnavis would join the party’s national executive that began in Hyderabad on Friday, a BJP functionary said, “He has spoken to our national leaders and informed them about the situation here. He Will not attend Hyderabad meeting as dates overlap with legislature session.” Sources said Mr Fadnavis will address a meeting of BJP MLAs at a hotel here on Friday evening.
It was widely expected that Mr Fadnavis, who was instrumental in engineering the split in the Shiv Sena that led to the collapse of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, would become the chief minister again.
But on Friday evening, he announced at a press conference after meeting the governor that Mr Shinde, a rebel Shiv Sena leader, would be the next chief minister, while he himself would not be part of the government. BJP is the largest party in the assembly.
Even as shocking news broke out in the state, BJP president JP Nadda said Mr Fadnavis was asked to accept the post of deputy chief minister.
Speaking to reporters in Pune late in the evening, NCP chief Sharad Pawar took a jibe at Mr. Fadnavis, saying he didn’t seem too happy to take up the junior post, but was probably following orders from above.
Notably, Mr. Shinde was a minister when Fadnavis headed the BJP-Shiv Sena government in the state from 2014 to 2019.