Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said the 2024 Assembly elections will be contested under the leadership of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Speaking at the India Today conclave here, he also said that the toppling of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government was a “revenge” for a “betrayal.” The Bharatiya Janata Party will contest the coming civic polls as well as the next Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in alliance with the Shinde-led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena, he said.
”In 2024, we will fight the election under the leadership of Eknath Shinde as chief minister and myself as deputy CM and we will return with a huge majority,” Fadnavis said.He also said that the Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray betrayed him and the BJP in 2019 when they ended the saffron alliance and joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party and Congress to form a government. He also reiterated that the BJP never promised the chief minister’s post for half the term to the Shiv Sena as the latter claimed. “During the 2019 campaign, our leaders said elections were being fought under Fadnavis’s leadership, which was never contested by Thackeray. But after the results he realised that if three parties came together he can become CM,” Fadnavis claimed.