In the morning on June 30, as the monsoon rains pounded Mumbai, journalists and TV vans swarmed outside Sagar Bungalow, the home of BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis in Malabar Hills. They were anticipating the arrival of Eknath Shinde, the rebel leader who split Shiv Sena and pulled down Uddhav Thackeray’s coalition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government. By around 11 am, top state BJP leaders began arriving at the bungalow – Praveen Darekar, Chandrakant Patil, Pankaja Munde, Ashish Shelar, Nitesh Rane – prompting the journalist to chase them with questions or provide live commentary on the hectic activity to their respective TV stations. The dominant theme was whether the newly allied Shinde and Fadnavis would stake a claim to form the next government and whether Fadnavis as the chief minister and Shinde as his deputy would take oath immediately. At around 2.40 pm, as Shinde’s car pulled up amid heavy security, the buzz crescendoed. Several of the TV reporters went on air to predict that Fadnavis would soon take over as the chief minister for the second time.
It didn’t take long for such predictions to be proved way off the mark. Addressing a press conference after meeting the governor later in the day, Fadnavis announced that Shinde would be the new chief minister.
