While an official announcement about the new role is yet to come, scores of Bihar leaders and Union Ministers have extended their congratulations to Fadnavis.
New Delhi: The likely appointment of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis as the election in-charge of Bihar, is being seen as the launch pad for him towards national politics and a bigger role in the party at the central level.
While the official announcement regarding this new responsibility is yet to come, scores of Bihar leaders and Union Ministers have already extended their congratulations to Fadnavis for his new role. Fadnavis, who is the Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra, had recently taken part in a virtual meeting of Bihar leaders that comprises the core group on election issues.
A lawyer by education, Fadnavis will be assisting the all-powerful party’s national general secretary Bhupender Yadav who has been Bihar in-charge for the last five years now.
“The elections are less than three months away and it is too short a time for Fadnavis to make a massive impact on the ground; the entire ground work and strategising will be done by Yadav, who by now, knows the mazes of Bihar politics very minutely. Fadnavis’ appointment should be therefore seen through two perspectives— first, he will be reminding the voters about the emotive issue of Sushant Singh Rajput which will strike ‘Bihari pride’, on how the Opposition parties are trying to save those responsible for Rajput’s death while the BJP is pushing for a CBI inquiry, and secondly, this role for Fadnavis is like a stepping stone, a mandatory assignment of sort, before he is given a bigger national role,” a Patna-based journalist, who has closely followed BJP politics, said.
It is pertinent to mention that Fadnavis, who has considerable experience when it comes to organisational maneuvering and planning and executing election-related strategies, will be following on the path of Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar and Dharmendra Pradhan who have been incharge or co-incharge of Bihar elections in the past. The fact that Fadnavis is a member of inter-ministerial committee on GST, which is headed by senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Modi, will also benefit Fadnavis in working in Bihar in a cooperative atmosphere and assist Modi.
The Nagpur born and raised Fadnavis, who owes his political life to Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde, had come close to the RSS when he was a school going kid, as his father Gangadhar Fadnavis was a well-know RSS functionary, who was regarded as a political mentor by both Mahajan and Munde. Gangadhar Fadnavis later on became a Member of the Legislative Council. Devendra Fadnavis himself became the mayor of Nagpur in 1997 at the young age of 27 years and later emerged as the number one choice for the post of state president in 2013.
“Pramod Mahajan, whenever he would come to Nagpur, would stay at Fadnavis’ home. The political discussion that would take place between Mahajan and his father was closely followed by Devendra Fadnavis. Majahan would take him to the party’s meetings in Nagpur. Devendra Fadnavis has seen the politics of RSS and BJP up close and at a very young age. He is a very well-read politician, who likes to do his homework. He stays awake at night to read and research the topic that he has to deal with the next day,” Nagpur based senior journalist Sameer Chougaonkar, who closely follows the RSS, told The Sunday Guardian.
The image of Fadnavis in RSS circles is that of a leader who is very civilized, soft spoken, who thinks before he speaks and invests a lot of time in hard work. The only minus that can be attributed to him is that no senior Maharashtra leader could stay politically relevant during his tenure, be it Pankaja Munde, Eknath Khadse, Vinod Tawde or even Nitin Gadkari.
“When Nitin Gadkari became the MLC in 1989, Mahajan had told him that he would have to leave the seat for Devendra Fadnavis when he would turn 21. That was the kind of close relation Mahajan and Fadnavis shared. Mahajan used to do national politics, Gopinath Munde would focus on state politics and Fadnavis has become a master of both now. Despite doing his politics from Nagpur, he was never seen as Gadkari’s man. He always has respect for Gadkari, but has done politics separately from Gadkari. When he was the state president and when he became the CM, he followed the politics of moving ahead, with or without the support of his senior colleagues. During both these responsibilities, he did not allow Gadkari’s men to make a space in the state. Even when the new BJP Maharashtra team was recently appointed, none of Fadnavis’ baiters got a space as Gadkari was not allowed to interfere,” a party leader stated.
According to Chougaonkar, Fadnavis has made a lasting impression on the RSS and Prime Minister Narendra Modi due to his hard work and his focus on running a clean administration whenever he was given a role. “He worked very hard during his tenure as state president and travelled extensively across the length and breadth of the state. When he became the CM, he ran a very clean government. The party sees him as a future leader; he is just 50 years of age. Both the RSS leadership and PM Modi see Fadnavis as someone who will be among those who will lead the party in the coming years,” he said.
This affection and trust for Fadnavis in the heart of the RSS and PM Modi was evident as despite the party losing power in the state, he was appointed the Leader of Opposition, was given complete say in the new team formation and now has been given a prominent role in Bihar.