Shinde ‘No Longer Needed’ by BJP, Says NCP as Mahayuti Tensions Escalate

NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) National Spokesperson Clyde Crasto issued a blistering statement on Wednesday declaring that the Bharatiya Janata Party has effectively outlived its political need for Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his Shiv Sena faction, pointing to rapidly escalating tensions within the ruling Mahayuti alliance as irrefutable proof that Shinde’s days in the coalition are numbered.

The trigger was Tuesday’s extraordinary spectacle at the weekly State Cabinet Meeting, where every single Shiv Sena Minister deliberately stayed away, forcing Shinde to sit alone among BJP and Ajit Pawar-led NCP ministers. Opposition circles described the boycott as an unprecedented public humiliation that laid bare the complete erosion of coordination and mutual respect among the three partners who swept to power together less than a year ago.

Crasto argued that the episode clearly establishes that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis no longer accords Shinde even nominal courtesy, while Sena Ministers themselves have lost faith in their leader’s ability to protect their interests against aggressive expansion by the BJP, which has been openly inducting second-rung Shiv Sena leaders and workers across multiple districts in preparation for upcoming civic polls.

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He directly appealed to Shinde’s sense of self-respect, urging the Deputy Chief Minister to resign from the Mahayuti immediately rather than wait for the inevitable moment when the BJP formally shows him the door, warning that continued subservience will only diminish whatever political capital remains with his faction after the bitter split from Uddhav Thackeray.

Although a late-night damage-control meeting chaired by Fadnavis produced a face-saving agreement that all three allies would refrain from poaching each other’s cadres, opposition leaders dismissed it as a temporary patch over a widening chasm, asserting that the underlying power struggle has reached an irreversible stage and Shinde’s marginalisation within the government is now only a matter of time.

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