The BJP has hit multiple targets with one bullet -- bringing Ajit Pawar into Maharashtra's ruling coalition. The most visible of them is the party's revenge on Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and the Shiv Sena. It also establishes Devendra Fadnavis's dominance in Maharashtra politics. The BJP's primary aim, though, is to win most of the 48 seats of Maharashtra in the next year's Lok Sabha elections.
For a victory in 2024, Maharashtra is crucial. It has the second-largest number of seats after Uttar Pradesh. Now, with coming together of Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde, the BJP will gain access to areas where it has not been traditionally strong. In the last Lok Sabha election, the BJP had contested on 25 seats and Shiv Sena on 23 seats. The BJP won 23 seats and the Sena won 18. The NCP had won four seats.
Yet another aim of the BJP was to rein in Eknath Shinde, who has lately been flexing muscles. Mr Fadnavis, who had promoted Mr Shinde, had not bargained to play second fiddle to him. The past year of the Eknath Shinde government has set off multiple tussles between the two parties.
But what made the BJP sit up and take notice was a recent advertisement in a daily that cited a survey to claim that Mr Shinde is more popular than Mr Fadnavis.
With the entry of Ajit Pawar into the equation, the BJP's dependence on Mr Shinde has reduced.
This is also convenient in view of the disqualification notice against Mr Shinde and his loyalists, which has to be settled by August 11. Any decision to disqualify the 40 MLAs of the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena would have pushed the BJP government into minority in the state assembly.
The BJP's defeat in Kasbapeth assembly by-election - one of its key strongholds in the state after 28 years -- to the Congress, plus some Legislative Council elections also made it imperative to cut the Maha Vikas Aghadi down to size.
The series of BJP defeats had breathed new life into the MVA, which got further enthused after the party's rout in Karnataka. The situation made it clear that if the MVA remains strong, the BJP's Mission 2024 in Maharashtra will suffer a setback.
The 2019 assembly elections were fought jointly by the BJP and Shiv Sena. During the election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said many times that the government will be formed under the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis.
When the results were announced, the alliance also got a clear majority, with the BJP winning 105 of the state's 288 assembly seats. The Shiv Sena came a distant second with only 56 seats. But the Sena's insistence on the Chief Minister post scuttled the alliance and President's Rule had to be imposed.
As a last-ditch effort, the BJP tied up with Ajit Pawar, who, along with Mr Fadnavis, were sworn in by the Governor in an early morning ceremony. But then all NCP MLAs except Ajit Pawar sided with Sharad Pawar and the government collapsed after three days.
At the time, Sharad Pawar had cleverly negotiated behind the scenes to make BJP appear power hungry - a fact the veteran leader himself claimed recently. Result -- Uddhav Thackeray joined hands with the Congress and NCP to form government.
The BJP's opportunity came last year.
In one of the party meets, Eknath Shinde had credited Devendra Fadnavis with engineering the split in the Sena. On its part, the BJP countered the "power-hungry" allegation by naming Mr Shinde the Chief Minister. The party's Central leaders took it a step further by persuading Devendra Fadnavis to accept the role of his Deputy.
The split in NCP was the BJP's big revenge against Sharad Pawar, though this time, it had less to do.
Ajit Pawar was hugely upset when his uncle withdrew his resignation in May. The move to name Supriya Sule the heir apparent dashed his hopes for the future.
Continuous, behind-the-scenes talks with Ajit Pawar had done the trick. What escalated Sharad Pawar's humiliation was bringing his close aides and loyalists like Praful Patel and Chhagan Bhujbal into the rebel camp.
(Akhilesh Sharma is Executive Editor & Anchor, NDTV India)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.