‘I’ll Be Back As Maharashtra CM’: Splits To Sacrifice, Devendra Fadnavis Keeps His 2019 Promise

Last Updated:December 04, 2024, 13:26 IST

During his speech as the opposition leader in 2019, Devendra Fadnavis had said, “Mera paani utarte dekh kinare par ghar mat bana lena, main samandar hoon, laut kar vapis aaunga…Mi punha yein.”

Devendra Fadnavis (clockwise from left) during his oath-taking in 2014, 2019 and 2022. (ANI/PTI File)

After jolts, splits and a supreme sacrifice, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Devendra Fadnavis is set to return as the Chief Minister (CM) of Maharashtra, reminding Maharashtra that he lived up to his popular remark from 2019 – “Mi punha yein (I will come back again)".

While Fadnavis’s walk to the CM chair, riding on the majority for the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance amid the Modi wave was easy in 2014, 2019 posed a unique challenge.

But five years later, after engineering splits in two key parties in the state, a Lok Sabha setback and an unprecedented win for his alliance in the 2024 assembly elections, Fadnavis has proved that when he called himself a “modern-day Abhimanyu" he meant it. During the campaigning, the BJP leader kept saying he was someone who “can breach the chakravyuh and come back".

CM FOR 80 HOURS IN 2019

With a comfortable majority to the undivided Sena-BJP, in 2014, Fadnavis, who had by then become popular as the opposition leader from Nagpur who highlighted Congress-era scams, was made the CM. The 2019 BJP campaign, too, had ‘Mi Punha Yein’ as Fadnavis’s tagline.

The BJP then won 105 seats, Shiv Sena 56, ist Congress Party (NCP) 54, Congress 44.

However, in an unexpected twist, despite winning the majority in 2019, the alliance between the BJP and Shiv Sena collapsed over the CM post and President’s rule was imposed. As Uddhav Thackeray began talks with NCP’s Sharad Pawar and Congress for an alliance, in November, a hasty Fadnavis took oath as the CM of the state along with Ajit Pawar, who switched from the NCP to form the government with the BJP-led Democratic Alliance (NDA) and was made the deputy CM. However, three days later, on November 26, the duo resigned as Ajit Pawar went back to his uncle Sharad Pawar.

Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray then formed an alliance with the ist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress to form government after the floor test on November 28.

This impacted Fadnavis’s image considerably.

THE MI PUNHA YEIN MOMENT

Fadnavis, who became the opposition leader in 2019, in his speech had quoted a couplet, “Mera paani utarte dekh kinare par ghar mat bana lena, main samandar hoon, laut kar vapis aaunga (Thinking the tide has ebbed, don’t you dare build your house on the coast; for I am the sea, and I will come back)…Mi punha yein."

As the Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) came to power, this remark was often quoted to take jibes at Fadnavis and vice versa.

THE SPLIT & SACRIFICE

However, June 2022 saw a major political upheaval in Maharashtra. Thackeray’s party’s Eknath Shinde joined the BJP-led Democratic Alliance (NDA) along with a group of his MLAs to form a government with the BJP in the state.

Fadnavis was not too keen on joining the government as Shinde was to be the CM, but on the insistence of the top leadership, he agreed to take the post of Shinde’s deputy, seen as a step back for someone who served as the CM.

A few months later, Ajit Pawar, once again, split from his uncle with a group of leaders and joined the Mahayuti alliance and was made the deputy CM again.

These splits, engineered by Fadnavis, changed the political landscape of Maharashtra, leaving the state with two Senas and two NCPs.

THE 2024 SETBACK, SUCCESS & HARD BARGAIN

The Lok Sabha elections, where the BJP won only 9 of the 28 seats it contested, saw Fadnavis’s leadership being challenged. But the resilient Fadnavis fixed those mistakes within six months, to give the BJP an unprecedented 132 of the 288 seats.

While many thought his road to the CM post has now been cleared, it wasn’t easy. While the results were out on November 23, Shinde, with 57 seats, bargained hard for the post, citing the Mumbai civic polls. The hectic negotiations went on for days.

Although Fadnavis’s name has been announced a day before the December 5 swearing-in, he can finally say: “I am back."

News politics ‘I’ll Be Back As Maharashtra CM’: Splits To Sacrifice, Devendra Fadnavis Keeps His 2019 Promise