The subtle messaging of the top BJP leadership as well as party workers and the party leaving the Maharashtra Chief Minister “open-ended” are seemingly indications that it is keen on assuming the role of “big brother” in the Mahayuti to ensure Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s return to the state’s top post in case the alliance is voted to power.

“At present, Eknath Shinde is the CM but after the polls, all three constituents of the Mahayuti (BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP) will sit together and decide the next CM,” Union Home Minister Amit Shah said after unveiling the party manifesto in Mumbai on Sunday.

This was not the first time Shah touched upon the “CM issue”. At a rally in Sangli last week, he claimed that the public wanted to see the “return of the Mahayuti and Fadnavis”.

A senior BJP leader too appeared to back Fadnavis for the top post. “At the grassroots level, the sentiment within the right wing is (Narendra) Modi for the country and Fadnavis for Maharashtra,” the leader said, requesting anonymity.

In a recent interview to The Indian Express, state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule said “the CM post is not on our agenda at this moment”.

Even as the BJP is dropping hints, the Shiv Sena has seemingly made it clear that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will continue in the top post if the Mahayuti returns to power. “For us, Eknath Shinde is the CM and will be the CM after the polls too,” said a senior Cabinet minister from the Sena.

Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has taken a more cautious approach with NCP state chief Sunil Tatkare claiming the focus right now was to bring the Mahayuti back to power. “The larger issues like CM, etc are best left to the top leadership after the elections,” he said.

However, sources within both the Sena and NCP maintain that many factors determine the CM face in coalition politics, especially if no single party gets a majority on its own. “There is no point getting into this discussion now,” a source said.

Though the Mahayuti is putting up a united front going into the polls against the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, comprising the Congress, Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), the internal power tussle between the ruling allies is hard to overlook.

The support that Fadnavis is garnering for the top post seemingly stems from two reasons. It is widely believed that Maharashtra took bold administrative steps for the larger welfare of the state when Fadnavis was at the helm of affairs between 2014 and 2019. Also, several people with the party as well as the RSS believe he was made to sacrifice the CM’s post in 2022 to accommodate the Sena in the NDA and if the BJP returns to power on its own strength, that should not happen again.

Ahead of the 2019 Assembly polls, when the BJP was in alliance with the undivided Sena, it had projected Fadnavis to be the CM and following his state-wide Janadesh Yatra, the BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 105 seats followed by the undivided Sena at 56.

Following differences over the CM’s post, the undivided Sena joined hands with the Congress and the undivided NCP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with Uddhav Thackeray as CM. However, the government lasted only two-and-a-half years as Shinde rebelled and joined the BJP-led alliance with 41 of the 56 MLAs paving the way for the NDA to helm the state again.

Fadnavis, who was seen as the architect of the rebellion, offered to install Shinde as CM and said he would not join the government. However, the BJP top brass “convinced” him to join the government as Deputy CM, citing his administrative experience and to keep the government “stable”.

The BJP then went into the Lok Sabha polls under Fadnavis’s leadership but was in for a rude shock as it won only 9 of the 48 seats as against the 23 in 2019. The Deputy CM yet again requested the party to relieve him of his role in the government to focus on party organisation but his requests were turned down citing that his departure would make the government “unstable” at a time when the Centre was focusing on big-ticket projects for Maharashtra.

The BJP is seemingly in course correction mode following the Lok Sabha debacle and even though Fadnavis may be the frontrunner for the top post, it will have to emerge as the largest party within the Mahayuti to assert its choice on its allies, according to party insiders. Anything less would see Ajit Pawar and Shinde flex their muscles, they added.