The Isolation of Devendra Fadnavis
A sure bet till yesterday, Fadnavis now looks shaky. Will an NCP-Sena alliance upset the BJP’s plans?
Devendra Fadnavis seems to be the loneliest politician in Maharashtra today. The fall in the BJP’s numbers in the assembly election means Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has refused to give him a pass for a second term as chief minister. Fadnavis describes Thackeray as a “close friend”, but in an unusual situation finds it difficult to reach out to a Sena chief adamant on getting an equal share in power. Indeed, it was Fadnavis’s stand—that the BJP and the Sena had never discussed sharing the chief minister’s post—that gave Thackeray solid reason to doubt the BJP’s intentions. Soon after, he sent trusted aide Sanjay Raut, the party leader in the Rajya Sabha, to Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar to discuss a possible alliance between the two parties. Raut claims the Sena has the backing of 161 MLAs. “The next chief minister will definitely be from the Sena,” he told reporters on November 4.
Raut’s calculation is based on the assumption that the NCP (54) and Congress (44) will support the Sena (56), and along with the backing it has from 7 independents, it will be able to form the government. An NCP leader says the
FADNAVIS IS ON HIS OWN. SHAH HAS REFUSED TO MEDIATE, AND SENIOR STATE LEADERS ARE IN NO MOOD TO HELP
party might form a government with the Sena with outside support from the Congress. In a smart move, Pawar has neither ruled out nor confirmed the possibility of backing the Sena. He called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on November 4, but later told reporters, “We have not yet received any proposal from the Shiv Sena regarding the alliance. How can we take a decision in this situation?” Political observers believe that Pawar, by fanning speculation of a possible NCP-Sena alliance, is helping Thackeray bargain hard with the BJP. In an apparent climbdown, the BJP has now softened its stand on portfolios and is amenable to giving the Sena any portfolio other than home, besides the chief ministership. Fadnavis still maintains he is sure of forming the government soon. “I won’t react on whois-saying-what on the power equation,” he told reporters in Delhi on November 4. “Maharashtra needs a new government as soon as possible and it will be formed soon.”
Fadnavis called on BJP president Amit Shah on November 4, expecting his help in steering the party’s boat in Maharashtra. But Shah has refused to mediate, and has asked him to resolve the issue at the state level. But with BJP seniors in the state like Nitin Gadkari, Eknath Khadse and Pankaja Munde in no mood to play trouble-shooter for him, Fadnavis finds himself isolated. Loyalists like water resources minister Girish Mahajan, though, insist “he is not alone, workers like me are with him”.
The second week of November will be crucial in deciding the future course of politics in the state. The term of the existing assembly, as of Fadnavis, ends on November 8. Meanwhile, if it is an NCP-Sena government, the Supreme Court verdict in the Ayodhya Ram temple case will play a crucial part in deciding whether a right-wing Sena gets support from the Congress. Also, Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s death anniversary falls on November 17. The party will want to pay homage by getting the upper hand in the next state government. ■
rights of people,” says CPI(M) politburo member M.A. Baby. “The party has raised strong protests against it in the past...some police officials have exceeded their brief,” he added. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury too appealed to the Kerala government to review the case. But CM Pinarayi has stuck to his guns, insisting the encounter was legit and the arrested students had Maoist links. For good measure, he also added that Maoists were not “lambs” and accused his critics of trying to “glorify them”. Meanwhile, CPI assistant secretary K. Prakash Babu, who visited the encounter site and spoke to locals there, says it’s clear that it was a fake encounter. “Even the video released to back the police version looks fake. In it, a police officer is seen writing the inquest report even as the encounter is on. It’s ridiculous,” says Babu. Ponnuswami, a member of the local Pudur panchayat, says the dead Maoists were familiar to the local tribal people. “They used to come to the settlement to get rice and other provisions. They were ready to surrender and had sent feelers to the police,” says Ponnuswami. He was reportedly present at the location when the encounter took place on October 28. “We heard sounds of firing and were told to take cover. Later, we found the body of Manivasagam (the alleged Maoist leader) with bullet injuries,” he says. A senior officer in the Kerala police, who requested anonymity, insists the encounter happened. “We went there based on clear intelligence inputs. The controversies are political...,” he says. Another senior officer, however, revealed that the police was under pressure from the Union home ministry to intensify its antiMaoist operations in the Western Ghats. The head of the Thunderbolts, the state’s antiMaoist commando unit, had been summoned to Thiruvananthapuram by the Kerala DGP on October 26.
With Marandi’s exit jolting the opposition alliance, one of their strategies now could be to highlight Chief Minister Raghubar Das’s non-tribal roots
seat-sharing arrangement will have the JMM contest about 40 seats and the Congress 30. Eleven seats will go to the RJD and the Left parties. “Efforts are on to persuade Marandi to review his decision, but there is little time left for dialogue,” says a Congress leader.
In the last assembly election, the BJP won 37 seats and AJSU five, assuming power with a thin majority. A split in the JVM-P in 2015 helped them attain a comfortable majority. Now, the BJP is aiming for 65 seats. Das claims to have received “positive” ground reports during his Johar Jan Ashirwad Yatra.
Marandi’s declaration to go solo has put paid to the opposition parties’ efforts to put up a united show. One of the strategies said to be in the works now is to highlight Das’s non-tribal roots. This in a state where Scheduled Tribes comprise 26.3 per cent of the population and have over a third (28) of the assembly seats reserved for them. However, the BJP won 11 of these seats in 2014, as many as the JMM. “We raised the tribal sub-plan to Rs 20,764 crore from Rs 11,997 crore in 2014,” says Das. “To protect Jharkhand culture, our government started giving honorariums to traditional tribal village heads. Adivasi Gram Vikas Samitis were formed in the predominantly tribal villages, with a grant of Rs 5 lakh for projects.”
The elevation of Das, who belongs to the backward Teli caste, as chief minister was part of the BJP’s strategy to win over the numerically significant non-Yadav backward classes. The BJP’s strategy has also been to attract nonMuslim, non-tribal votes by projecting Das as a credible OBC leader. ■