BJP on top, CM Fadnavis shows he is the Maha boss
Party’s impressive show will cement his position as state’s undisputed leader
MUMBAI: In the past three decades of Mumbai politics, ever since the Shiv Sena grabbed power in the BMC as the messiah of the Marathi manoos, no chief minister directly took on the saffron party and won in the bargain.
On Tuesday (the polling day), chief minister Devendra Fadnavis did just this, something that political veterans, including former Congress CMs Vilasrao Deshmukh and Prithviraj Chavan, had failed to do.
In an aggressive political campaign, which he helmed singlehandedly, Fadnavis not only took on the Thackerays — he called the Sena a ‘party of extortionists’ — but also put up a score to match that of the sons-of-the-soil party. This is the closest any party has come to Sena’s tally in the BMC since the 1997 polls.
Not just Mumbai, under Fadnavis’ leadership, the BJP has managed to consolidate its wins in the 2014 assembly polls by spreading its footprint across all recently held polls, starting with municipal councils and now followed by big city corporations and district councils that govern rural areas.
In absolute numbers, the BJP upped its overall seat tally in the 10 civic bodies as well as 25 district councils significantly.
“Despite having no governing experience when he took over as chief minister, Fadnavis has proved he has electoral and organisational acumen. More importantly, because of his clean image and vision for development, he can be projected as the party’s face,’’ said a BJP leader.
Fadnavis, BJP’s face for the polls, held 62 rallies in the state, including 11 in Mumbai, in the past 15 days of the campaign.
The party poached on winnable candidates, conducted in-depth surveys to gauge the mood of the people, poured money into its advertising and at Fadnavis’ insistence, made anticorruption an important poll plank along with development. He also cleared the name of every single candidate, which the party had put up in these polls.
The party’s impressive show in Maharashtra just as BJP heads into crucial assembly battles in five states will help Fadnavis bolster his position in the party and the state policy.
Within the party, while the CM does not have a team of loyalists backing him, his position as the state’s supreme leader will now be cemented. BJP’s performance will also help him gain party brass’ confidence.
It is clear that unless there is an un expected disruption, Fadnavis will lead his party in the 2019 assembly polls.
The victory is also likely to curb Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s rebelliousness with the party unlikely to pull out of the government in the face of such a mandate favouring the BJP. And it keeps nay sayers and opponents like Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) under check as they can no longer claim that the BJP government has lost the confidence of the people.
“You can take it in writing that there is no danger to my government. I will stay for five years,’’ Fadnavis had told HT during the campaign. And he had also predicted his party’s results in the Mumbai civic polls. As the results came in on Thursday, Fadnavis’ words are now ringing true. It would seem that this self assuredness comes from some astute political arithmetic.