In a dramatic turn of political events in Maharashtra, BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis was sworn-in by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari as chief minister as early as November 23, 2023 with Nationalist Congress Party’s Ajit Pawar as his deputy. , Photo Credit: PTI
Alelike the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the spirit of 2019 government formation, which rattled Maharashtra, refuses to rest. Recently, in an interview to a news channel, Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis created a ruckus when he said that his attempt to form government with NCP leader Ajit Pawar in November 2019 was backed by NCP chief Sharad Pawar. support was received.
BJP state president Chandrashekhar Bawankule had then claimed that Mr Sharad Pawar was “not averse” to forging an alliance with the BJP after the 2019 assembly polls, adding that he had not approved Mr Fadnavis being made chief minister in such a scenario. The question is, why has Mr Fadnavis chosen this moment – three years after he and Mr Ajit Pawar were ‘secretly’ sworn in in the presence of the then Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari – to ruffle feathers?
The plot deepened when Mr. Sharad Pawar termed Mr. Fadnavis’s statement as false and said that had it not been for the morning swearing-in with his nephew, President’s rule would never have been lifted from Maharashtra and there could be no Uddhav Thackeray. The Chief Minister of the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Govt. Was he indicating that the morning’s coup was in fact planned? He later remarked that his remarks about the revocation of President’s Rule were “made in jest”. However, given Mr. Sharad Pawar’s well-known reputation for skillful political maneuvering, it is difficult to dismiss any of his statements as mere jest.
Whatever the truth about Mr. Fadnavis’ recent revelations, the BJP’s behind-the-scenes intrigue with the ideologically opposed NCP began before the 2014 Maharashtra assembly elections. The long-standing alliance between the BJP and the Shiv Sena and between the Congress and the NCP was then broken, and the four parties contested the elections separately. While the BJP emerged as the single largest party in the state, it failed to secure a simple majority. Soon after the results, when the Shiv Sena was hesitating to form a government with its saffron ally, the NCP offered unsolicited support to the BJP. At the time, Mr. Sharad Pawar had justified this by saying that the offer was being made to the NCP in the interest of providing a stable government to Maharashtra. However, the BJP reprimanded the NCP. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena tied up with the BJP to form the government with Mr Fadnavis as the chief minister.
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But the BJP’s relations with the Shiv Sena remained strained throughout the government’s tenure (2014-19). Every time relations between the two parties hit a new low, top BJP leaders made a ‘non-political’ visit to Mr Sharad Pawar’s bastion Baramati in Pune district. This was seen as BJP’s strategy to keep Shiv Sena under control. In February 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Mr. Pawar and praised the “Baramati model of development”. Later, the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Mr. Fadnavis also visited Baramati and paid tribute to Mr. Sharad Pawar’s “commitment to development”.
In this light, Mr. Fadnavis’ statements may indicate that the BJP is open to options in the near future. It can also be read as a way of keeping an eye on Eknath Shinde’s army. In this reading, Mr. Fadnavis, who was forced to cede the post to Chief Minister Mr. Shinde last year following a coup by Chief Minister Mr. Shinde, is keen to ensure that Mr. Shinde does not become more popular than him.
Moreover, the NCP’s decision last week to offer unsolicited support to the NDPP-BJP government in Nagaland only reinforces the notion that a backchannel is at work between the NCP and the BJP. The NCP chief denied this and said that his party was supporting Nagaland’s Neiphiu Rio and not the BJP.
Whatever the case, Mr. Fadnavis and the BJP also hope to take advantage of the deepening rifts within the MVA. Deeply weakened after the Election Commission of India’s decision to give the Shiv Sena party name and symbol to the Shinde faction, the Thackeray army is entirely dependent on the NCP and the Congress for an alliance. The NCP is undoubtedly the strongest of the three, with its allies often accusing it of seeking expansion at its own expense. Mr. Fadnavis and Mr. Ajit Pawar, who is the Leader of the Opposition, share good relations. Should Mr. Shinde become too big for his shoes, Mr. Fadnavis may ‘recruit’ Mr. Ajit Pawar as his man in the BJP.