Fadnavis firm on quitting government; Shinde Sena blaming candidate selection process; Ajit Pawar to skip NDA meet: What do all these developments mean for the Mahayuti sarkar?
Ajit Pawar, Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis at a rally
Taking all responsibility for the party’s poor show in Maharashtra, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has offered to quit the government and work full-time for the BJP organisation to recover the LS loss in the 2024 winter Assembly elections. He said he would formally ask the party leadership to relieve him. He stayed put despite the state BJP core committee leaders’ appeal that they would not let him go from the tri-party government.
Fadnavis’s announcement wasn’t expected, said the state president Chandrashekhar Bawankule. It came at the end of DCM’s press conference he held to brief the media about the reasons for the BJP’s depletion. Fadnavis listed a number of socio-political issues, most importantly certain narratives set by the Opposition, that he said the BJP could not counter effectively. Before the media conference, senior leaders had met to analyse the defeat.
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“It is my responsibility. I lacked somewhere, but I will try to recover the losses in the Assembly elections. I take sole responsibility for the setback my party has received in Maharashtra. I will request the party leadership to relieve me from the position in the government so that I can give more time to the party organisation. I will stay out of the government and work full-time for the party,” he said, adding, “I’m not a person who will lose [courage]. I will work harder than ever.”
Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis at a rally during Lok Sabha polls. File pics
But before expressing his desire to quit, Fadnavis presented statistics showing that there was a slight difference between the polling percentage of the NDA and MVA. In Mumbai, NDA polled more votes than the MVA, but lost seats, he said, adding that nearly ten seats were lost by a small margin.
Fadnavis’s announcement marked restlessness in the BJP camp which has been already upset because of a massive drop in the party’s gain and its political consequences in the future. Akin to the situation that prevailed after Fadnavis was reluctant to be Eknath Shinde’s deputy in 2022, the atmosphere in the BJP camp was tense as he made the last statement. Instead of accepting a demotion then, Fadnavis had asked for permission to work in the organisation.
Shocked by the DCM’s statement, Bawankule, Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar and other senior members of the election and core committee led Fadnavis inside and attempted to convince him to change his mind. Later in the day, senior leaders from the BJP, Shinde Sena and NCP (Ajit Pawar) turned up at Fadnavis’s official residence to convince him to stay on in the government.
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis during the press conference at the BJP office on Wednesday. Pic/PTI
“We can’t do without him in the government. He can contribute to the organisation even when he is in the government. We wish to go to the Assembly elections under Fadnavis’s leadership. He alone cannot be responsible for our performance in the Lok Sabha election,” said Bawankule, hoping that Fadnavis would consider their request to rethink his decision.
Questions galore
Speculations were rife as to why Fadnavis had made his wish public. There was no way to know whether he had consulted the leadership before offering his resignation. If not, then, a question was raised over his tenacity to make such a declaration without having a say from the high command. In 2022, he was made a DCM because the leadership in Delhi wanted to use his experience of running the government between 2014 and 2019 to smoothen the formation which was first participated by Shinde Sena and joined a year later by Ajit Pawar. Fadnavis carried multiple roles as the principal minister, strategist and decision-maker in the state BJP, of course with approval and consultation from the high command that had supervised a split in the undivided Sena and NCP. Fadnavis had played an important role in both break-ups and turned out to be a villain for the Opposition.
No wonder then a question was raised over the stability of the Shinde Sarkar by those who thought there was no alternative to Fadnavis as a bonding agent of the Mahayuti. Political circles were abuzz with a discussion over Fadnavis’s successor in the government. BJP insiders said that Bawankule’s term of presidency was about to end soon, and he might make way for Fadnavis. Some people in the BJP tipped Sudhir Mungantiwar as the next state BJP president. Some said if Fadnavis goes to the BJP headquarters, Mungantiwar would be promoted in the government.
Chandrashekhar Bawankule, BJP state president
Blame it on surveys: Sena
Also, according to buzz before the election results were announced, Shinde would be replaced, but his party’s ‘better than the BJP’ show has given him more teeth to stall the BJP’s moves. His party leaders have blamed certain things that were devised by the BJP for stopping them from winning more seats. The BJP and Shinde Sena were engaged in prolonged negotiations for seats and candidates. In many places, the names were announced at the last hour. The BJP was accused of making Shinde change candidates, drop sitting MPs and exchange/vacate seats. Finally, Shinde did not buckle under undue pressure and got a double-digit number in seat-sharing.
Earlier in the day, Shinde Sena spokesperson and MLA Sanjay Shirsat came down heavily on the surveys that led to replacement of sitting MPs and poor selection of candidates in some places. “Surveys... many surveys... different surveys were the centrepoint. We changed candidates because of these surveys and lost at many places,” he said, adding that his party would have won more than seven seats.
He said they lost in some places because of the delay in candidature. “A lot of politics had taken place before we placed our candidates at the eleventh hour. It is necessary to talk about it because we would have bettered our strike rate even further,” he said.
Shirsat said the Uddhav Thackeray Sena was wrong in celebrating the victory. “The Congress and NCP (SP) benefited because of UBT. The UBT Sena revived the dead and suffered losses in many seats because its partners did not work. Remember Sangli. Think about the losses. But they are not ready. Instead, they will go to Delhi to see Rahul Gandhi,” he said.
Ajit NCP upset
The second DCM Ajit Pawar doesn’t have much to bargain with, but his party has already started talking about getting more seats to share in the Assembly elections. It was learnt that Pawar would skip the NDA meeting in New Delhi. Apparently, he was upset and crushed under massive defeats in three places, including Baramati. He has finished at the bottom, winning only one seat out of four.
His party’s MLC and spokesperson Amol Mitkari blamed the NDA partners for not transferring votes to Sunetra Pawar in the Baramati constituency. “We trailed in all six Assembly segments. The leaders from NDA parties (read BJP and Shinde Sena) did not work for us,” he said, adding that whatever votes Pawar got was because of her husband’s influence.
“There was no other reason for us to lose by a huge margin. How can a leader who works so hard lose here? We would have won by nearly 50,000 votes.”
He said the party’s future would be in danger if the trend continued in the alliance. “We did not get Nashik. Parbhani, Gadchiroli. We could have won them. We lost Shirur because of others. The leaders did not work despite instructions from the BJP high command. I will take this up in the party’s meeting the day after. I don't fear consequences,” he said.
9
No. of seats won by BJP in the state
1
No. of seats won by NCP
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