In June last year, the startling dénouement to Maharashtra’s regime change drama came when BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, widely considered the front-runner for the top post, bit the bullet and announced ‘rebel’ Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde’s name as the State’s 20th Chief Minister.
The crisis triggered by Mr. Shinde’s revolt, which vertically split the 56-year-old party founded by the late Bal Thackeray and toppled the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray, significantly altered Maharashtra’s political equation.
But in the 10 months since Mr. Shinde’s faction of 50 MLAs (40 from the undivided Sena and 10 Independents) formed a new government with the BJP, there have been questions about the constitutional and moral legitimacy of his government. Those questions were reinforced by Supreme Court’s verdict last week in the Sena vs Sena case, which held that Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari’s call for a trust vote that led to the resignation of the Uddhav Thackeray-led government, was illegal.
