SHINDE LOSES SHINE

The ex-CM is besieged within the Mahayuti—Ajit snipes at his Sena, as BJP offers cover fire. Will they fight polls separately?

- By Dhaval S. Kulkarni

IF YOU'VE SEEN THOSE animated 'bar chart races', rankings that keep shifting to capture a competition across time, it's a perfect fit for Maharashtra's ruling trinity. Devendra Fadnavis ahead till mid-2022, Eknath Shinde shooting up, then Ajit Pawar threatening to crash the party, and so on. Except that, after the first pocketed the CM's post last December, Shinde's bar has been a bit sluggish and angry.

Fadnavis had once called Shinde a "natural ally", and Ajit a mere "political ally", implying the NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) was an unpleasant necessity. But of late, the BJP's affections have turned. The ideological buddy, who resaffronised a chunk of the Shiv Sena, seems marginalised in the Mahayuti. Ajit is executing a slow demolition job on his fellow deputy CM, digging in a jack here, dangling a counterweight there, all with the BJP watching from the sidelines.

SNIP, SNIP