Amid allegations against the BJP of toppling governments to gain power, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde lavished praise on his new-found ally on Saturday for giving the top post in the state to a "small worker" like him.
"The BJP has 115 MLAs and people had expected a BJP chief minister in Maharashtra. People used to say that the BJP breaks other parties to come to power. I have 50 MLAs. Can people now say the same thing about the BJP? They cannot. A small worker like me has got a chance to be the chief minister," Shinde told reporters here.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has often been under attack from its opponents for allegedly toppling governments in states in its unbridled pursuit of power, particularly after the post-election regime changes in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
Shinde, who raised a banner of revolt against Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, was a minister for two-and-a-half years in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as the other coalition partners.
Shinde was all praise for the BJP after his meetings with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and the president of the saffron party, J P Nadda, and shortly before calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He accused Uddhav Thackeray of deviating from the ideals of Shiv Sena founder late Balasaheb Thackeray.
Shinde said he tried to reach out to Thackeray on at least three or four occasions with a request to join hands with the BJP, the "natural ally" of the Shiv Sena, but was unsuccessful in convincing him.
Thackeray had to step down as the chief minister of Maharashtra after 40 of the 55 Shiv Sena MLAs as well as 10 Independent legislators joined the Shinde camp.
Shinde had taken the MLAs supporting him to a hotel in BJP-ruled Gujarat and from there to Assam, another state ruled by the saffron party, as the political crisis unfolded in Maharashtra.
The MLAs supporting Shinde were then brought to BJP-ruled Goa, before being flown to Mumbai for a special session of the Assembly for the trust vote of the new government.
