Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday maintained the party’s stand and said that there is no speculation about Nawab Malik being part of the government if the Mahayuti alliance wins the upcoming assembly elections.

“When we have said that we are not even campaigning for Nawab Malik so speculating about whether he would be part of the government or not is baseless,” he said.

BJP has staunchly opposed the nomination of Nawab Malik, the NCP (Ajit Pawar) candidate from Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar.

The BJP is in an alliance with Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Eknath Shinde led-Shiv Sena, called the Mahayuti alliance.

Fadnavis further mentioned that the alliance partners have talked about the problem of cross nominations, and other rebel candidates filing nominations as independents, with the party currently trying to convince the rebel MLAs to rescind their nominations.

“Some people have cross nominated from our alliance. Yesterday we all allies sat together and sorted all issues about cross nominations among ourselves. In a day or 2 you will see the effect of the same. There are some rebels also from our alliance who have filed their nominations, we are trying to convince them also to take back their nominations. We will start our campaign in full swing after November 4 or 5, after Diwali,” he added.

Regarding the rebel nominations within the party, the Deputy CM assured that Gopal Shetty is ultimately a “dedicated BJP senior leader.”

“Gopal shetty is a dedicated BJP senior leader and sometimes he demands something but ultimately he supports the party. This time also we are hopeful that he will come with the party line,” Fadnavis added.

Former MP Gopal Shetty filed his nomination on Tuesday as an independent candidate from the Borivali assembly seat after the party decided to field BJP Mumbai general secretary Sanjay Upadhyay instead.

Shetty has been an MP from the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat.

Announcing his independent nomination on X on October 3, he said, “Yesterday, I officially filed my nomination as an independent candidate for the Borivali Constituency, supported by a large number of enthusiastic supporters!”

Deputy CM Fadnavis also said that the party is looking for ways to support Raj Thackeray’s son, Amit Thackeray in the Mahim Assembly constituency, saying, “We are trying to find out a way to support Raj Thackeray in Mahim Assembly. We are hopeful that soon some solution will come.”

Amit Thackeray will be in the electoral fray against Shiv Sena’s (Eknath Shinde) candidate Sada Sarvankar.