Mumbai: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has made it clear to the BJP’s central leadership that Devendra Fadnavis has to be the next chief minister of Maharashtra. It has left it to Fadnavis to politically accommodate incumbent chief minister Eknath Shinde in whichever way he wants.
Fadnavis has been a member of the RSS since his school days and as a resident of Nagpur, where the RSS is headquartered, he had maintained close equation with the Whos Who of the saffron outfit.
The RSS, which had maintained a low profile, has become more assertive after BJP president J.P. Nadda’s remarks some months ago that the party is not dependent on the RSS. Because of this remark, the RSS assiduously distanced itself from the Lok Sabha elections and the results were there for all to see.
After Nadda apologised, the RSS once again entered the electoral campaign first in Haryana and later in Maharashtra in the assembly elections with encouraging results.
The Jana Sangh, the earlier avatar of the BJP, was formed in 1952 as a political front of the RSS and over the years the Sangh had played an important role in the growth of its political wing. However, in the recent past a trust deficit had cropped between the RSS and the BJP which was reflected in Nadda’s controversial remark.
RSS sarsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat had also dropped sufficient hints about the growing differences. In July this year, the RSS chief had dropped the “Bhagwat bomb” when he referred to some persons desire to become superman and God. His riposte was apparently in response to Modi’s claim earlier that he felt that he was not biological but sent by God.
However, the RSS is now determined to ensure that the BJP toes the line laid down by the Sangh. It is in this background the Sangh’s insistence on Fadnavis for the top post is significant.
The Shinde camp has suggested equal sharing of the CM’s post for 2.5 years each. But this suggestion is not acceptable to the BJP, which with 132 MLAs of its own, is in a commanding position. The rank and file of the BJP too is insisting that the crucial post of CM should now rest with the party only and Fadnavis should head the new government.
When the MVA government was pulled down in a coup effected by Eknath Shinde and backed by Fadnavis, it was widely expected that the latter would be made the CM. However, the central leadership of the BJP insisted on Shinde so that he is able to complete the unfinished agenda of politically reducing the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray to a rump. And this is exactly what happened on November 23.
The only minus point (if it can be perceived as such) is that Fadnavis is a Brahmin. In Maharashtra traditionally there has been a trust deficit between the Brahmins and the dominant Maratha community. When Nathuram Godse, a Puneri Brahmin, shot Mahatma Gandhi dead, the homes of thousands of Brahmins in Sangli, Satara and other parts of Maharashtra were targeted by Maratha mobs.
The false narrative that no Brahmin of Maharashtra came forward to perform the rajyabhishek (coronation) of Chhatrapati Shivaji because of which Gagabhatt, a Brahmin from Varanasi, had to be brought to perform the ritual has also worked against the Brahmins of Maharashtra.
Maratha leaders like Sharad Pawar reinforced the false narrative by repeatedly pointing out that the Brahmins do not name their sons after Chhatrapati Shivaji or Chhatrapati Sambhaji.
It was the late Bal Thackeray who took a calculated risk in appointing Manohar Joshi, a Brahmin from Raigad, as the first Brahmin CM of Maharashtra. Fadnavis himself has a five-year term as the CM and never once displayed any caste bias.
