Shinde, Fadnavis face tough balancing act in role reversal
MUMBAI: Maharashtra’s newly minted chief minister has his first task cut out for him: how to be on an even keel with his once all-powerful deputy. Eknath Shinde, 58 and Devendra Fadnavis, six years his junior, were colleagues in the state cabinet for five years but this was when Fadnavis was at the helm of the state government.
While the Shinde faction owes power to the Bharatiya Janata Party, Thursday’s curious chain of events with Fadnavis, who was widely believed to be the next chief minister, first announcing that he would stay out of the Shinde-led government and then later being forced to become a part of it, leads to questions about the chain of command. By ensuring Fadnavis joins the government as Shinde’s deputy, there will be checks and balance not just for Shinde but for Fadnavis too.
In 2014, when the Shiv Sena joined the government Shinde was one of five Sena ministers in Fadnavis’s cabinet. Though Shinde was the minister for public works (public undertakings), Fadnavis was seen as the man driving that ministry. The biggest project that the Maharashtra State Roads Development Corporation Limited (MSRDC), which came under Shinde’s ambit, was executing was Fadnavis’s pet project — the Mumbai-nagpur Samruddhi expressway.
A senior Shiv Sena leader disclosed that, in those early days, Shinde and Fadnavis were not on the best of terms. Their political rivalry come to a head during the Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) elections in 2015 which the Sena and the BJP contested separately. This battle was so bitter in Shinde publicly offered to resign as minister while at a campaign rally addressed by Uddhav Thackeray.
“However, they mended bridges when it came to the planning and execution of the ₹55,000 crore Samruddhi expressway project,” the Sena leader noted. The greenfield project, which includes a 701km access-controlled road that will link the state’s capital to the winter capital, was initially opposed by the Shiv Sena through a Saamna editorial in May 2017. The editorial claimed that government machinery was being misused to acquire farmland for the project. Later, Shinde claimed that the party leadership was not against the project per se but was only trying to protect the interests of the farmers. Eventually, the Shiv Sena came around and the road was renamed as the “Hinduhriday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Samruddhi Expressway” in memory of the late Shiv Sena supremo.
A senior bureaucrat who was in the government at the time said that when it came to MSRDC, Fadnavis and Shinde shared a good equation eventually. But, he pointed out, there was a stark contrast between the style of working of the two — Fadnavis was seen as quick and decisive, always thinking on his feet; Shinde was comparatively cautious. Sainiks often use the Marathi word “maval”, or mild, to describe Shinde’s style of operation, while Fadnavis is all fire and brimstone. When it comes to optics, too, Fadnavis is expressive and has great social skills, while Shinde is much more muted and reticent.
But over the years the two colleagues became “cautiously friendly”. In 2017, when the Shiv Sena and the BJP contested the Mumbai and Thane civic polls on their own strength, the BJP is said to have pulled its punches in Thane, which is Shinde’s pocket borough. Likewise, Fadnavis confidante and Dombivali MLA Ravindra Chavan, whose constituency is part of the Kalyan Lok Sabha seat, represented by Shinde’s son Shrikant, was among those handpicked by the BJP central leadership to arrange the logistics for the operation to topple the MVA government.
However, will the two men’s power-sharing pact play out as expected?
While there have been instances in the past in Maharashtra when chief ministers have gone on to play junior roles in subsequent governments, notably Shankarrao Chavan and Shivaji Patil Nilangekar, Fadnavis’s determined ambition is something that will bear watching out says the Sena leader who has worked with both men. The potential flashpoint, he says, can come from the control of the state bureaucracy that Fadnavis excels at, and then over the forthcoming BMC elections.
“Shinde may be seen by some as a BJP puppet, but the chief minister is the chief minister. It is his signature that matters, regardless of who is the power behind his throne,” said the Shiv Sena leader quoted earlier. As recent moves have shown, the soft-spoken, unassuming Shinde, too, is a man driven by ambition and an agenda of his own.
MUMBAI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has handed over Maharashtra’s chief ministership to Eknath Shinde, has ensured that certain portfolios remain with it, and Devendra Fadnavis, who was sworn in as the deputy chief minister under Shinde on Thursday, has been tasked with safeguarding the party’s interests in the state and in the government, according to people aware of the matter.
Insiders in the state BJP also conceded that until the events played out on Thursday, none of them were aware that Shinde would be the new CM.
“It was a shock for all the state leaders. Until two days ago, we were expecting Fadnavis to be the CM, but the decision appears to have been changed by the central leadership after Thackeray made an appeal to the rebel MLAS and offered them to take over as CM. This was the turning point,” a leader said, asking not to be named.
“The power-sharing formula and pact was finalised by Union home minister Amit Shah. The Eknath Shinde faction is likely to get 15 ministerial berths, while the BJP is expected to get key portfolios like home, finance, agriculture, revenue, PWD, school education, and environment, among others,” the leader added.
By keeping these portfolios, BJP will want to ensure that development-related works are steered by it. In fact, among the first decisions of the government is to keep the roll back Thackeray’s decision building the metro car shed at Aarey, which is a clear indication of the BJP’S imprint.
During the 2014 BJP-SENA government, the junior partner was given 12 portfolios but none of them were the key ones, which led to considerable resentment in the Shiv Sena. This time, Eknath Shinde is in a better bargaining position, said a second BJP leader.
The home department could be the bone of contention between the two camps. Fadnavis
held the department for five years of his government, and had complete command on the police force. It needs to be seen whether Shinde, who recently got former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to reverse the tranasfer of the certain senior police officers from Thane, will agree to give the home portfolio to the BJP.
Among the MLAS in Shinde’s camp, nine were ministers in the MVA government.
Other than Bacchu Kadu who represents a small party, Prahar Jansshakti Party (PJP) and Rajendra Patil Yedraokar, who is an independent, there are seven Sena ministers, including Shinde, among the rebels. “Shinde will have to accommodate all of them in his cabinet apart from inducting a few new faces to avoid discontent. This means he will have to get at least 15 departments, including ministers of state. The Maharashtra cabinet has 43 berths, including the CM. Unlike Uddhav Thackeray who held no portfolio, Shinde is likely to keep the urban development department to himself,” said the second BJP leader
This leader added, that after the floor test and the election of the speaker of the assembly, both Shinde and Fadnavis are expected to meet the BJP’S top leadership in Delhi next week to hammer out the shape and size of the cabinet. “Most of the decisions so far were taken by Delhibased party leaders. Even the power-sharing pact will be finalized by the leaders in consultation with Fadnavis”, he said.
Apart from Fadnavis, Chandrakant Patil, Girish Mahajan, Ashish Shelar, Pravin Darekar, Sanjay Kute, are among those from the BJP who are likely to be made ministers.
The BJP and the Shinde camp are expected to woo some of their leaders with the assurance of their appointments on government-run statutory boards and corporations. They are also expected to be given assurances of their nomination to the legislative council, where more than 13 seats are vacant.