This Article is From Oct 21, 2014

For Maharashtra Chief Minister, Camp Gadkari Wants In.

For Maharashtra Chief Minister, Camp Gadkari Wants In.

File pic: Union minister Nitin Gadkari (Press Trust of India)

Mumbai: The BJP's choices are getting problematic. It has to decide how to form the government in  Maharashtra, where it won the most seats but does not have an outright majority. And a pool of leaders who want to head the new government appears to be swelling.  

This evening, a group of  law-makers from the BJP met with  union minister Nitin Gadkari at the Nagpur airport, where they reportedly urged him to return from Delhi to lead his home state. Mr Gadkari told NDTV in a recent interview that he was not looking to switch jobs.  But sources within the BJP say that the lobbying by his supporters reflects a concern that Mr Gadkari could be over-shadowed on his home turf of Nagpur.

The front-runner for Chief Minister is widely believed to be Devendra Fadnavis, the 44-year-old president of the BJP in Maharasthra.  Like Mr Gadkari, he is from Nagpur.  Both politicians owe much of the success in their careers to the powerful backing of the  Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS, which is the ideological mentor of the BJP, and is headquartered in Nagpur .  Both Mr Gadkari and Mr Fadnavis are Brahmins.  It's not hard to see why a veteran might feel upstaged, said sources.  

Another reported aspirant for Chief Minister, Pankaja Munde, told NDTV after winning her constituency that her heart was no longer in any sort of larger contest for the top job.

Ms Munde's father, Gopinath, one of the BJP's tallest leaders from Maharashtra, died in June while he was union minister. He was known to have a close equation with Mr Fadnavis and an uneasy relationship with Mr Gadkari.It was at the RSS' urging that Mr Fadnavis was chosen last year as the BJP's president in the state.  The RSS hoped his appointment would end the bickering between the rival Munde and Gadkari camps.

 

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