Fadnavis was stunned but BJP had clear reasons and kept Eknath Shinde informed

This is the rea­son for Thurs­day’s unusu­al sequence of events in Mum­bai: first, Fad­navis’ sur­prise announce­ment that Shinde would be CM and not part of the gov­ern­ment; then the pub­lic state­ment by BJP Pres­i­dent JP Nad­da, which was quick­ly endorsed by Amit Shahno, Fad­navis would be Deputy CM.

Such a pub­lic dis­play of con­fu­sion is unheard of in a par­ty with its heavy empha­sis on plan­ning and dis­ci­pline. But when Fad­navis did­n’t seem to know, the BJP kept Shinde informed at all times, sources said.

Accord­ing to sources, the par­ty believed that a strong BJP leader at the top was the only way not only to ensure bet­ter pol­i­cy-mak­ing, keep bureau­cra­cy in check and advance the gov­ern­men­t’s agen­da, but also con­tribute to sta­ble gov­ern­ment wor­ries. “With­out pow­er, Fad­navis would be an extra-con­sti­tu­tion­al cen­ter of pow­er, which could cause prob­lems,” said one leader.

Giv­en that Fad­navis is seen as a capa­ble admin­is­tra­tor, keep­ing him out would have sent the wrong sig­nals, apart from demor­al­iz­ing the squad, the par­ty felt.

On Shinde, how­ev­er, the par­ty was clear, as the leader of the Sena rebels was told that if he got the required Sena rebel num­bers, he would be CM.

Fad­navis did in fact vis­it the state cap­i­tal twice to hold talks with Inte­ri­or Min­is­ters Amit Shah and Nad­da but appar­ent­ly did not get the full pic­ture. This is reflect­ed in the fact that he accept­ed con­grat­u­la­tions from par­ti­sans and well-wish­ers when news of Uddhav Thack­er­ay’s res­ig­na­tion arrived.

New­ly elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter of Maha­rash­tra Eknath Shinde and Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Deven­dra Fad­navis dur­ing their oath-tak­ing cer­e­mo­ny at Raj Bha­van in Mum­bai Thurs­day, June 30, 2022. 

A senior offi­cial admit­ted to The Indi­an Express that the deci­sion was made sole­ly by Del­hi — “Union Home Sec­re­tary Amit Shah, Par­ty Pres­i­dent JP Nad­da”. Lat­er, the two also called Fad­navis and made pub­lic state­ments prais­ing his “con­tri­bu­tion.”

With Lok Sab­ha and Assem­bly elec­tions sched­uled for 2024, the BJP sees very lit­tle time to accel­er­ate its mega flag­ship projects and Fad­navis, who was for­mer­ly CM, may be best placed to push them for­ward. On the con­trary, Shinde, who had spent his entire polit­i­cal life in the shad­ow of the Thack­ays, might have found it dif­fi­cult to focus on the task at hand while hold­ing the Sena together.

Apart from that, the deci­sion was prompt­ed by the caste cal­cu­lus. A BJP leader said: “We had to include social engi­neer­ing. In a 3% Brah­min state, a Brah­min as CM would give the oppo­si­tion Con­gress, NCP and Uddhav Sena a con­ve­nient weapon to tar­get the BJP.” Shinde is a Maratha mak­ing up 30% of the pop­u­la­tion. Dur­ing his tenure as CM between 2014 and 2019, Fad­navis faced aggres­sive Maratha agi­ta­tion for a two-year reservation.

The BJP leader, who was a sur­prise pick for CM in 2014, was also seen as ris­ing too quick­ly in a par­ty that prefers to hold back its ranks. Sources said both state and cen­tral lead­ers have noticed Fad­navis’ pop­u­lar­i­ty, and it may also have result­ed in clip­ping the wings of the leader once thought to be Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mod­i’s confidence.

Sources said both state and cen­tral lead­ers have noticed Fad­navis’ pop­u­lar­i­ty, and it may also have result­ed in clip­ping the wings of the leader once thought to be Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mod­i’s confidence. 

Though uni­ver­sal­ly pop­u­lar, Fad­navis has his detrac­tors in the ranks. Senior leader Eknath Khadse, who left the BJP to join the NCP in 2020 after being accused of cor­rup­tion, blamed him. Oth­er lead­ers such as Vin­od Tawde and Chan­draskhekhar Bawankule also sus­pect­ed Fad­navis’ hand in refus­ing tick­ets to them in the 2019 gen­er­al elec­tion and were lat­er actu­al­ly picked up by the BJP. Anoth­er promi­nent face, Panka­ja Munde, pub­licly stat­ed that she does not con­sid­er Fad­navis her leader and also blamed him for her loss of the par­lia­men­tary seat.

Par­ty cir­cles in Del­hi said that despite appre­ci­at­ing his lead­er­ship of the BJP in the state, the cen­tral lead­er­ship had also devel­oped “reser­va­tions” about the way he worked.

Recent­ly, how­ev­er, Fad­navis’ graph has been on the rise again. He had kept up the pres­sure on the MVA gov­ern­ment on Hin­dut­va issues, had been instru­men­tal in many of its lead­ers fac­ing cas­es and had recent­ly won extra votes for the BJP to help it win more seats in the polls of Rajya Sab­ha and Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil to win as their num­ber was there.

On Thurs­day evening, as Fad­navis announced at a news con­fer­ence in Mum­bai that Shinde would be the next CM while he would not be part of the gov­ern­ment, Nad­da stat­ed in the nation­al cap­i­tal that the BJP leader would be deputy CM. “Fad­navis just announced that Eknath Shinde will be the CM of Maha­rash­tra and he will not be part of the gov­ern­ment. It shows the char­ac­ter of our par­ty and our leader and that we are not work­ing for pow­er but for our ide­ol­o­gy… How­ev­er, the cen­tral lead­er­ship of the BJP has decid­ed that Fad­navis should become part of the gov­ern­ment. So I made him a per­son­al request,” Nad­da said.

Shah endorsed the same in a tweet with­in min­utes, say­ing: “…(Fad­navis) has shown a big heart and decid­ed to join the gov­ern­ment for the sake of the state of Maha­rash­tra and the peo­ple. This deci­sion is a sign of his true loy­al­ty and ser­vice to Maha­rash­tra. I hearti­ly con­grat­u­late him on that.”

At least two senior lead­ers told The Indi­an Express that this could be a “bridg­ing deal” and Fad­navis could be appoint­ed to nation­al pol­i­tics in the future.