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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 4:59:11 pm

Why BJP cannot afford to pull Fadnavis out of Maharashtra

Mumbai: A recent political skirmish between Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ wife, Amruta and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has inadvertently breathed new life into one of Maharashtra’s longest-running political debates: Is the Chief Minister quietly preparing to shift his base to New Delhi? Following a provocation by Raut regarding a potential move to the national capital, Amruta delivered a sharp retort, asserting that unlike the Sena leader, both she and her husband remain strictly...

Why BJP cannot afford to pull Fadnavis out of Maharashtra

Mumbai: A recent political skirmish between Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ wife, Amruta and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has inadvertently breathed new life into one of Maharashtra’s longest-running political debates: Is the Chief Minister quietly preparing to shift his base to New Delhi? Following a provocation by Raut regarding a potential move to the national capital, Amruta delivered a sharp retort, asserting that unlike the Sena leader, both she and her husband remain strictly oriented toward grassroots public service. While this high-profile exchange captured the daily headlines, a deeper investigative analysis of the state’s political chessboard reveals a starker structural reality – the BJP simply cannot afford to move Fadnavis anytime soon. The speculation surrounding a “Delhi destiny” for Fadnavis is not new. Political observers have frequently positioned him in the national leadership matrix, with widespread speculation even hinting at him as a potential successor to the Prime Minister. Yet, Fadnavis has consistently played the consummate organization man. He has repeatedly stated his strong preference to remain anchored in Maharashtra, while diplomatically adding that, as a disciplined cadre of the BJP, he is bound to serve the people in whatever capacity the party high command deems appropriate. Leadership Vacuum However, behind closed doors, the real reasons anchoring Fadnavis to Maharashtra lie in the severe leadership vacuum and complex challenges currently facing the state BJP unit. A forensic look at the party’s regional roster exposes a glaring lack of alternatives. Over the past few years, the state party dynamic has been fundamentally restructured; senior stalwarts like Vinod Tawde have already been absorbed into the central leadership in New Delhi, while several other regional heavyweights have been strategically cut down to size. Consequently, the Maharashtra BJP is currently devoid of another experienced, universally acceptable hand with the political bandwidth to govern a crucial and financially vital state. Fadnavis possesses a rare ideological and administrative hybrid profile that perfectly aligns with Maharashtra’s unique sociopolitical climate. He remains deeply rooted in the core Hindutva ideology of his parent organization, yet he seamlessly projects the modern, technocratic, and pro-corporate image that is absolutely essential to helm a highly progressive and industrialized state. This dual persona is the exact political capital required to hold a fragile government together. Fadnavis has proven to be the only leader capable of walking the tightrope of regional coalition politics, successfully acting as the connective tissue between two major, often feuding allies who rarely see eye-to-eye on administrative or ideological issues. Caste Politics Beyond coalition mechanics, Maharashtra is currently navigating a highly volatile undercurrent of simmering caste politics. Fadnavis’ political acumen has been critical in absorbing these sociopolitical stretches and strains, ensuring that these regional frictions do not derail the state’s economic momentum. Under his watch, the administration has fiercely guarded Maharashtra’s position as the numero uno destination for development and investment in the country. Finally, the state is gearing up for a season of massive logistical, cultural, and administrative challenges, most notably the upcoming Kumbh Mela in Nashik. Executing mega-events of this scale requires seasoned, hands-on leadership and deep institutional memory.

Fraying Stitch

West Bengal’s Chief Minister built her rule on minority consolidation. Ahead of a hotly-contested Assembly poll, the seams are coming apart.

West Bengal
West Bengal

For more than a decade Mamata Banerjee has ruled West Bengal by mastering a simple political arithmetic: consolidate Muslim voters, scatter the opposition and frame every election as a ‘civilisational’ stand-off with the Bharatiya Janata Party. That formula delivered landslides in 2016 and 2021 and turned the Trinamool Congress (TMC) into the state’s natural party of power. But ahead of the coming Assembly elections, that arithmetic is beginning to wobble. The emergence of Muslim-led outfits exploring a united front speaks volumes about what Mamata Banerjee has reduced Bengal’s politics to.


Humayun Kabir, a suspended TMC MLA and the man behind the construction of a Babri Masjid replica along a national highway in Murshidabad, has floated a new party, the Janata Unnayan Party, and is openly urging Muslims to break with the TMC. He has found common cause with Naushad Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front (ISF), rooted in the influential Furfura Sharif shrine, which has called for an alliance against both the TMC and the BJP. Talks are reportedly under way with smaller outfits, including the SDPI, the political wing of the banned Popular Front of India.


For years Mamata Banerjee positioned herself as the sole credible guardian of Muslim interests. Welfare schemes, symbolic gestures and a relentless anti-BJP rhetoric cemented her image as a bulwark against majoritarian politics. Muslims, roughly 27 per cent of Bengal’s population, rewarded her handsomely in districts where they form decisive blocs. In Malda, the TMC’s vote share jumped from single digits in 2011 to a majority a decade later. In Murshidabad, it rose even more dramatically. Together, these districts became pillars of Trinamool dominance.


Yet it is precisely in these belts that the TMC now looks most exposed. Many seats were won in 2021 by margins slim enough to be overturned by a modest 5–7 percentage-point split in the minority vote. A fractured Muslim electorate would not hand power to the BJP overnight, but it could turn comfortable victories into knife-edge contests and complicate Mamata Banerjee’s path to a fourth term.


The deeper story is not electoral mathematics but political exhaustion. The churn among Muslim voters has been fuelled by a growing sense that the TMC’s minority politics has curdled into tokenism. The controversy over the removal and reclassification of OBC groups, amendments to the Waqf law, and the state’s habit of reactive governance have created unease.


Mamata Banerjee’s style of rule has aggravated the problem. Power in Bengal has been personalised to an extreme, dissent criminalised and local strongmen indulged so long as they deliver votes. This has produced a politics where identity entrepreneurs thrive.


Meanwhile the BJP’s leadership has intensified organisational efforts, drafted ‘Prabasi’ leaders from across India and scheduled high-profile visits by national figures. Yet the BJP’s challenge in Bengal remains structural as its appeal still polarises more than it persuades. Mamata Banerjee continues to exploit fears over citizenship laws, migrant detentions and electoral roll revisions to rally minorities behind her.


That is precisely the tragedy of Bengal’s politics. After 14 years of Trinamool rule, the state is poorer in ideas and thinner in institutions. What should have been a decade of renewal after Left Front stagnation has yielded instead a brittle regime dependent on fear. The rise of Muslim-led outfits is not a sign of healthy pluralism but a sign that politics has been reduced to identity bargaining in a vacuum of governance.


Whether or not Banerjee is dethroned this time, she certainly is being challenged in a big way for the first time since 2011 -and that too from within the very constituency that sustained her rise. That alone is an indictment. Bengal, once a crucible of ideas, now offers a narrower spectacle of a ruling party that mistook crude consolidation for consent. It is discovering that loyalty purchased through polarisation rarely endures.

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