Mumbai:

The ruling Mahayuthi alliance of Maharashtra staunchly denied speculation about a rift within ahead of the budget session of the state assembly.  Appearing before the media, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “There is no Cold War among ruling allies. Both myself and Eknath Shinde know what we do when we are together… We have successfully fought the Opposition and got a landslide victory in the Assembly,” he added.

The press conference took place after the Cabinet meeting and customary tea meeting which was boycotted by the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi.

“The situation of the Opposition is not like us — we are together… There is tension and resentment among the opposition itself,” he said.

“Today we had invited the opposition for ‘Chahapan’ (snack meeting before the budget session) but they boycotted it. They held a meeting in which none of their big leaders came. They have given us a 9-page letter in which there are names of nine people, there are signatures of seven people and in that letter, they have raised issues which they have only taken from the press,” Mr Fadnavis said.

Reports of a rift within the ruling alliance had occupied headlines over the last weeks, indicating that Eknath Shinde, who had to step down from the top post to make way for Devendra Fadnavis, is still upset. 

The scaling down of security of several of his party’s leaders and appointments of ‘guardian ministers’ for Raigad and Nashik districts that will hold the next Kumbh mela, have renewed the friction.

Sources told NDTV that security of 55 lawmakers from Mr Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction — who enjoyed Y Category security — have been scaled down. The government had explained as an aftereffect of the re-evaluation of security threat, but it apparently has not appeased the Sena chief. 

While the ruling alliance have repeatedly denied any rift, it has brought cheer to the Opposition MVA camp, which had been routed in the assembly election held last year. 

It was followed by a hiccup in the Mahayuthi. The naming of the Chief Minister took up the better part of two weeks, its last days rife with reports of the challenge the BJP faced in getting Mr Shinde to accept Mr Fadnavis as the next Chief Minister, a fait accompli given Ajit Pawar’s decision to support the BJP.