Most of us including me were expecting Devendra Fadnavis to become the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra but BJP being BJP took a very different and unthinkable route. Eknath Shinde became the Chief Minister and we were told first that Fadnavis will not be in the government at all. Suddenly, things again changed with BJP National President JP Nadda appealing to Devendra Fadnavis to be a part of the government and within a half hour or so, Devendra Fadnavis swore in as the Deputy CM.
This was like a political thriller movie with lot of twists and turns where the director threw the audience off with an unexpected climax at the very end. This story started with the hero, Devendra Fadnavis, being unceremoniously ousted from his house by his partner who betrays him and join hands with two others. He vows to come back and patiently works towards to it. A day finally comes when he ousts the three people from his house using saam, daam, dhand, bhed and takes his revenge. When the audience expects him to take over the house, he surprisingly gives it to someone else. The whole village hails the hero and everyone lives happily ever after.
On a more serious note, if we have to look deep into these events, we will realize the super political acumen that the BJP top brass has. Only a selected few knew the plan and executed it to the tee along with Eknath Shinde. The million dollar question is why Fadnavis was not made the CM immediately. There seems to be a strategy behind it. By giving Eknath Shinde the CM post, BJP has shown the Marathi manus that it cares for Maharashtra more than their party interests. It has shown that it will do what is right and is not power hungry. With this one action, BJP won the hearts of the Shiv Sainiks. It has almost made the elite families, Thackerays irrelevant, Gandhis a non-entity and Pawars powerless striking a death blow to parivarvaad in Maharashtra.
The internal Shiv Sena power struggle will be sorted between themselves and Eknath Shinde now has the power to sort that out. With a Shiv Sainik as CM now, Uddhav Thackeray and Sanjay Raut can’t do any politics around that. This will greatly help BJP in the upcoming BMC and Lok Sabha elections. The other parties will struggle to put across a stronger narrative that will influence the voters. Deputy CM Fadnavis can still influence the government decisions so that they are in line with the Central Government. It will be almost a double engine Sarkar in Maharashtra.
Internally within Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray will have the role of just a brand ambassador as the real power will be with Eknath Shinde. Uddhav Thackeray will no more have the followers he had in Shiv Sena although he will continue to have sympathizers outside the party including some Bollywood actors. Eknath Shinde will give him all the respect that he deserves as the son of the great Sri Balasaheb Thackeray. The legacy of Balasaheb will continue and Shiv Sena will continue.
Devendra Fadnavis would have personally wanted to come back as CM but a professional that he is, he understood the strategy of his party and graciously agreed to become the Deputy. With this move, a point will come in Maharashtra politics where BJP will on its own get a majority in the Assembly and can form its own government without depending on anyone although Shinde Sena will continue to give their support. Fadnavis will eventually get his due or if things don’t pan out as expected, the party will give him a plum post at the centre given his proven skillsets as a next generation leader in BJP. The only thing that BJP could have avoided is the public appeal to Devendra Fadnavis to become the Deputy CM which is so much not like BJP who don’t issue internal appeals in public but they might have done it just to further strengthen Devendra Fadnavis’s image as a selfless leader who only looks at Maharashtra’s interests and the interests of the party. It was still avoidable.
BJP has done a ‘Swacch Maharashtra Abhiyaan’ of sorts and have emerged decisive winners. This is also a great turning point in Maharashtra politics with an auto driver becoming a CM that will inspire youngsters to aspire for great heights by working hard to serve the people of Maharashtra. Politics will never be the same in Maharashtra. Very importantly, Maharashtra has won!
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