BJP national president JP Nadda has said that the party's central leadership wants Devendra Fadnavis to be a part of the Maharashtra government. “BJP's central leadership has decided that Devendra Fadnavis should become a part of the government. So, made a personal request to him. The central leadership has said that Devendra Fadnvais should take charge as Deputy CM of Maharashtra," said Nadda.
At present, the BJP has 106 MLAs in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly and Shinde is leading 39 rebel Shiv Sena legislators and some Independents. After the death of a Shiv Sena MLA recently, the current strength of the Assembly is reduced to 287, thus the majority mark is 144.Eknath Shinde has claimed that he has 50 MLAs with him, including 40 MLAs from Shiv Sena.“The decision that we have taken is committed to Balasaheb's Hindutva and for the development work in the constituencies of our MLAs," said Shinde. “We went to former CM Thackeray with our constituency's grievances and development work along with advising him on the need for improvement as we started realizing that it would be difficult for us to win the next elections. We demanded a natural alliance with BJP," he added.