Maharashtra politics endgame: Devendra Fadnavis to blame

Fadnavis is essentially responsible for the huge embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra. Following are the reasons:

1. He violated a basic principle of the BJP by putting himself above the party. He fancied himself to be another Modi with none of his qualities. During the poll campaign, he kept on repeating, rather childishly, “I will come back to power!!, I will come back to power!!, I will come back to power !!!” (And no word about the party). In five years he had become very arrogant and egoistic.
2. Uddhav Thackeray is a friendly person not too difficult to please. But Fadnavis snubbed him at every available opportunity thereby creating a huge divide. Uddhav’s demand for 50:50 share of posts could have been handled with tact. But, Fadnavis’ arrogance ensured that the saffron alliance split.
3. Fadnavis kept on giving a false picture to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president ah and th Amit Shah and they, in turn, instructed Governor Koshyari to play along.
4. Fadnavis’ desire to be CM was so strong that he became blind to the ground reality. He did not realise that like in “hu tutu” Ajitdada Pawar has been sent by his kaka (uncle Sharad Pawar) to cross the line, touch him and get him out.
5. Fadnavis’ strong sense of insecurity resulted in his politically finishing of his imaginary rivals within the party, including Eknath Khadse, Vinod Tawde, Pankaja Munde etc. In the end, he remained an isolated figure in the state organisation. This resulted in the party and Fadnavis himself performing less than in the 2014 assembly polls.

I hope the BJP does deep introspection, shows Fadnavis his place and creates a collective leadership in the state to lead the party in the mid-term elections which is inevitable. By S Balakrishnan

(Balakrishnan is a senior journalist and political critic)