Maharashtra twist: BJP anoints Eknath Shinde CM, makes Devendra Fadnavis his deputy | India News — Times of India

When Uddhav Thack­er­ay retired as Maha­rash­tra CM, he made way for BJP leader Deven­dra Fad­navis Return­ing to his old job, almost every­one thought the grip­ping polit­i­cal dra­ma would now move in a straight line. Except that a stun­ning twist was yet to come.

And it hap­pened Thurs­day night when the BJP decid­ed to step aside for rebel leader Shiv Sena, Eknath flay, 58, behind the wheel. Fad­navis announced he will not be part of the gov­ern­ment only to be ordered by the BJP lead­er­ship to take the oath as deputy CM.

In a day of dra­mat­ic turns, Shinde, who led a mas­sive coup in the Sena, was sworn in as prime min­is­ter after claim­ing to form the gov­ern­ment with the BJP and 51-year-old Fad­navis as his deputy.
The deci­sion left many intrigued and con­fused. Maha­rash­tra is the sec­ond state after Bihar where the BJP has ced­ed the post of chief min­is­ter to a part­ner, despite hav­ing more MLAs. But this is not an exact par­al­lel. In Bihar, the BJP con­test­ed the 2020 polls by pro­ject­ing Nitish Kumar as their CM nom­i­nee, stick­ing to their orig­i­nal pick despite sig­nif­i­cant­ly out­per­form­ing him.

In con­trast, BJP has a pop­u­lar face in Fad­navis. He was believed to have done well as a CM — some­thing that was a fac­tor in the BJP-Sena alliance’s vic­to­ry in the 2019 polls. His par­ty refused to sac­ri­fice his claim when Uddhav demand­ed the CMO as a con­di­tion for the Hin­dut­va com­bi­na­tion to continue.
Fad­navis has recent­ly basked in the glow of back-to-back vic­to­ries in the polls for Rajya Sab­ha and the state Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil, and the skill­ful exe­cu­tion of the moves by Union Home Sec­re­tary Amit Shah to restore the suprema­cy of Hin­dut­va politics.

Even as his sup­port­ers planned grand cel­e­bra­tions of his prospec­tive appoint­ment as CM, Fad­navis dropped a bomb­shell at the BJP’s senior core com­mit­tee meet­ing at his res­i­dence that after­noon, say­ing that Shinde, not him, would be the CM and that he him­self would not be attend­ing Gov­ern­ment. The core com­mit­tee meet­ing was attend­ed by BJP Pres­i­dent Chan­drakant Patil, Sud­hir Mungan­ti­war, Ashish She­lar and Girish Maha­jan and took place a few hours before Fad­nav­i’s media brief­ing fol­low­ing his meet­ing with Gov­er­nor BS Koshyari.
But then Fad­navis final­ly took over the post of Dy CM. The BJP lead­er­ship expects him to be able to over­see Shin­de’s activ­i­ties. “It was believed that if Fad­navis is not made Dy CM, it would result in a com­plete­ly free hand for Shinde,” said a senior leader.

But sources said the “sur­prise” may have been in the works all along as the BJP planned to pur­sue more sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal goals in the state, which is home to the coun­try’s finan­cial cap­i­tal and has 48 Lok Sab­ha members.

Report­ed­ly, ever since BJP lead­ers impeached him for over­throw­ing the MVA gov­ern­ment, Shinde had made it a con­di­tion that he would draw up an action plan pro­vid­ed he was appoint­ed CM. But it was felt that if Shinde, with 40 MPs, were appoint­ed CM, it would anger the BJP lead­ers led by Fad­navis. Even­tu­al­ly, how­ev­er, the pro­pos­al to anoint Shinde as CM was accept­ed. “There is no infor­ma­tion as to whether Fad­navis knew about the pro­pos­al. It seems he was told that a few days ago, so he made the announce­ment on Thurs­day,” the leader said.
Inter­est­ing­ly, when Fad­navis was CM from 2014 to 2019, he had opposed the cre­ation of a deputy CM post, say­ing it cre­at­ed anoth­er cen­ter of pow­er that was not healthy for the administration.
Accord­ing to sources, BJP has been try­ing to set­tle scores with Sena and NCP chief Sharad Pawar by get­ting Fad­navis to give way to Shinde, a Maratha who Saf­fron sources claim incit­ed Uddhav to defect by using his known con­nec­tions to Sena’s con­tro­ver­sial deputy took advan­tage San­jay Raut.

Although the BJP has emerged as the largest polit­i­cal force at the expense of Pawar, Con­gress and Sena, it sees Pawar’s influ­ence over the Marathas of west­ern Maha­rash­tra as a chal­lenge. She has cap­i­tal­ized on PM Naren­dra Mod­i’s pop­u­lar­i­ty and gained a foothold in the pow­er­ful social com­mu­ni­ty, but wants to build on that ahead of the 2024 elec­tion. Fad­navis’ Brah­man­ic back­ground could have been a hand­i­cap as Pawar camp is known for reviv­ing the mem­o­ry of Pesh­wa Raj to gath­er Marathas and oth­ers. Orig­i­nal­ly from Satara in west­ern Maha­rash­tra, Shinde is said to be bet­ter equipped to lead the battle.

His upris­ing will also help the BJP’s plan to invade the Hin­dut­va con­stituen­cy of Sena. Although many of these Hin­dut­va sup­port­ers were known to be angered at how Uddhav was allow­ing NCP to con­trol the gov­ern­ment and grow at the expense of Sena, the BJP lead­er­ship was con­cerned that the for­mer CM might regain their sym­pa­thy by she played a vic­tim of intrigue. Hav­ing a Sainik pedi­gree as a CM will help mit­i­gate the charges. As CM, Shinde will aggres­sive­ly court “shakha pra­mukhs” and “vib­hag pra­mukhs” who felt mar­gin­al­ized even when Uddhav was in Mantralaya and uncom­fort­able with the water­ing down of the ide­o­log­i­cal plank.
The BMC polls this year would show if BJP got it right.
—With con­tri­bu­tions by Pra­ful­la Marpakwar