Fadnavis who led from the front, is favourite for the chief minister’s post

Mumbai: From the morning of that hurried, furtive and eventually ill-fated swearing-in with Ajit Pawar in November 2019, Devendra Fadnavis has been the target of a zillion memes. His slogan, ‘Me Punha Yein” (I’ll be back) after decisively losing the chief ministership to Uddhav Thackeray was similarly ridiculed.
But so much of politics is a waiting game, and Fadnavis, 54, had no option but to bide his time. On Saturday, as he led the state BJP to an exceptional win, he was the man in the spotlight. From Vinod Tawde to Pankaja Munde, fellow party leaders who have borne the brunt of Fadnavis’s ambition, were there at his house to felicitate him. The BJP, winning 132 seats, 11 short of a simple majority on its own, has registered its best-ever performance in Maharashtra. When the CLP leaders of the three Mahayuti parties meet in Mumbai on Sunday, Fadnavis is widely expected to be announced as the next chief minister of the state. Sources say that Eknath Shinde, the present incumbent, who has done well by the alliance will be deputy CM as will be Ajit Pawar with whom Fadnavis shares a good rapport.
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Until four months ago it had seemed that Fadnavis would be moved to Delhi after the alliance’s poor performance in Lok Sabha. Briefly, there was a move to project collective leadership instead of projecting him as the face of the party in the Assembly elections. The BJP was especially worried as Maratha reservation activist Manoj Jarange-Patil pointedly targeted Fadnavis who is a brahmin. But it is believed that the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh which played a key role in booth management this time, prevailed upon the party to retain Fadnavis as the face. The RSS leadership is also learnt to have advised the BJP not to compromise on the CM’s position this time round. “Devendra Fadnavis should be should be recognised for his tireless efforts if the Mahayuti is voted to power, and the BJP emerges as the single largest party,” a senior RSS leader had told HT on Thursday. Fadnavis campaigned extensively across the state, addressing 64 rallies and did not shy away from divisive card. He raised the bogey of Vote Jihad and upped the ante with ‘batenge toh kitenge’ slogan.
Trained as a lawyer from Government Law College in Nagpur, Fadnavis has old Sangh ties. His father Gangadharrao was an MLC from BJP while Fadnavis has been a six-term MLA from Nagpur south-west. After the embarrassment of 2019, he played a key role in getting Eknath Shinde to split the Shiv Sena as he did with engineering the split within the NCP. It was he who suggested Shinde’s name for chief minister but was forced by his party to become Shinde’s deputy. “I was reluctant but then the PM called and said, ‘This government is not an experiment, if you stay out of the cabinet even your own party colleagues would not listen to you’,” he told HT in 2023.
“It was embarrassing for him but Fadnavis did it as a loyal party worker,” said a close associate of the leader on Saturday. Over the last two years he worked closely with Shinde even when the latter asserted his authority. During the Maratha agitation relations between the two men were strained when activists sympathetic to Shinde, a Maratha, targeted Fadnavis.
In the last two years, Shinde also built his independent equation with the BJP’s central leadership and insisted that the Ladki Bahin scheme, originally started by the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, be called the Mukhya Mantri Ladki Bahin Yojna. The runaway success of the scheme is one of the key factors for the Mahayuti’s sweep. As the results came in on Saturday, Shiv Sena spokesperson Naresh Mhaske said, “We have won this handsome victory under the guidance of Eknath Shinde and going forward he should get the opportunity to lead the government again.”
At a press briefing later in the day along with his two deputies the poker-faced CM cracked a smile, exchanged laddoos and said all the right things. “Our entire team of Mahayuti worked together. This is team victory. Once all the numbers are in, we will sit together and decide (on the chief ministership).”
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When asked about his views, Fadnavis said there had been no formula or parameter to decide on the chief minister. The decision will be taken by the top leaders of the three parties,” he said.