Devendra Fadnavis absent at Maharashtra BJP's celebration; to skip national executive meeting in Hyderabad

Mumbai: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was conspicuously absent from a celebration held at the state BJP headquarters on Friday over the new government formation after the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government. PTI quoted sources as saying that he would not be attending the BJP's national executive meeting in Hyderabad.

The program at the party office in south Mumbai was meant to celebrate its return to power in Maharashtra after two-and-half years following the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government. 

Fadnavis, who had on Thursday announced that he would not be part of the new Eknath Shinde-led government but later took oath as deputy chief minister, did not attend the celebration. A close aide of the former chief minister said he was busy holding meetings at his residence ahead of the two-day special session of the Maharashtra legislature from July 3. 

Asked if Fadnavis would attend the national executive of the party that will start in Hyderabad from Saturday, a BJP functionary said, "He has spoken with our national leaders and informed them about the situation here. He would not attend the Hyderabad meeting as dates overlap with the legislature session." 

He would be addressing a meeting of BJP legislators at a hotel here on Friday evening, sources said. It was widely expected that Fadnavis, considered to be instrumental in engineering a split in the Shiv Sena which led to the collapse of the Sena-NCP-Congress government, would again become chief minister. 

But on Thursday evening, he announced in a press conference after meeting the governor that Shinde, the rebel Sena leader, would be the next CM, while he himself would not be part of the government. 

The BJP, notably, is the single largest party in the Assembly. Even as the state reeled under the stunning news, BJP president J P Nadda informed that Fadnavis had been asked to accept the post of deputy CM. Shinde was a minister when Fadnavis headed the BJP-Sena government in the state from 2014 to 2019.