Spotlight on Fadnavis as Maharashtra government battles crisis

The BJP emerged as the single largest party and Fadnavis the chief minister, but he had to quit in the face of imminent defeat in a Supreme Court-mandated floor test after rebel NCP leader Ajit Pawar failed to win over enough MLAs to keep the government afloat.Fadnavis, whose nimble political manoeuvres helped the BJP defeat the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi candidates in the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections, may be holding the trump card that could pave the way for the BJPs return to power in the key western state.

Two successive defeats of the ruling MVA candidates in Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council polls and the subsequent rebellion by senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde have pushed the Uddhav Thackeray government to the brink and given BJP an edge in Maharashtra with the spotlight on former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

'Mee Punha yein…' (I will come back), was Fadnavis' slogan when he sought a fresh mandate in the assembly elections in 2019. The BJP emerged as the single largest party and Fadnavis the chief minister, but he had to quit in the face of imminent defeat in a Supreme Court-mandated floor test after rebel NCP leader Ajit Pawar failed to win over enough MLAs to keep the government afloat.

Fadnavis, whose nimble political manoeuvres helped the BJP defeat the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi candidates in the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections, may be holding the trump card that could pave the way for the BJP's return to power in the key western state. It is advantage Fadnavis as the Thackeray-led MVA government battles an existential crisis after Maharashtra Urban Development and Public Works Department Minister and senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde rebelled with a chunk of party MLAs and parked himself in a luxury hotel in Surat in neighbouring BJP-ruled Gujarat.

Shinde, a quintessential organisation man, wields considerable influence in the Sena and was its leader in the state assembly before being sacked on Tuesday.

In the 288-member Maharashtra assembly, BJP is the single largest party with 106 MLAs followed by Shiv Sena (55), NCP (53) and Congress (44). The Shiv Sena had walked out of a pre-poll alliance with the BJP after the 2019 assembly elections to form the government with Sharad Pawar's NCP and the Congress following differences with the BJP on the chief minister's post.

There was unease in a section of the Shiv Sena over the growing stature of Aditya Thackeray, Uddhav's son and minister, in party affairs.

"Shiv Sena has not been able to keep its flock together. The Sena MLAs often complain of the chief minister being inaccessible," a leader in the ruling coalition said, adding Shinde, too, was finding it difficult to get files related to his ministry cleared by the chief minister.

Another MVA leader admitted the ruling coalition was caught unawares by Shinde's revolt, and accused the BJP of engineering defections to topple the government.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar described the crisis in Maharashtra as an "internal matter" of the Shiv Sena and declared his party will support the decisions taken by the Thackeray-led outfit.

Pawar had spoken to Thackeray on Tuesday morning, but told a press conference in New Delhi he would wait for the Shiv Sena to make an assessment of the situation before offering any comments. He noted several governments have survived despite massive cross-voting in elections like those for the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council.

The NCP supremo also asserted the MLAs of his party voted in the Legislative Council elections "in a disciplined manner", suggesting the cross-voting occurred in the Congress and Sena camps.

The MVA leaders alleged that the BJP was trying to engineer another 'Operation Lotus' in Maharashtra on the lines of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh where ruling party MLAs had resigned en-masse, paving the way for BJP to form the government.

According to political observers, Fadnavis has emerged as a master strategist by getting the better of the MVA, guided by an astute Sharad Pawar, who played a key role in stitching together the unlikely alliance to keep the BJP away from power in 2019.

The Shiv Sena, which has been a formidable force in Maharashtra politics for decades, could face a grim battle for staying relevant in Maharashtra politics should the MVA government fall. The Congress, whose writ ran large in the state for a long time, was pushed to the fourth position in the 2019 Assembly election and may find it difficult to make a big comeback anytime soon. Thackeray's bete-noire Narayan Rane, the Union Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, did not lose the opportunity to target the Shiv Sena.

"Congratulations Eknathji, you have taken the right decision at the right time, otherwise you would have met the fate of Anand Dighe," Rane, a former Shiv Sainik, said on Twitter.

Dighe, a firebrand leader and close associate of Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray, headed the Thane district unit of Shiv Sena in the 1990s. Dighe died in 2001 in a Thane hospital of heart-attack while recuperating from injuries suffered in an early-morning road accident.

Rane also congratulated Fadnavis and his colleagues on ensuring the victory of five BJP candidates in the Legislative Council elections and punishing the state government.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)