Overriding Maratha Agitation, Fadnavis Is Now The Undisputed Leader

Just as the Maratha agitation subsided in Mumbai last week and the agitators celebrated victory at the Azad Maidan before vacating the streets of south Mumbai and returning to their villages, a high-powered, 360-degree advertising campaign emerged in the media and on the billboards of Mumbai, indicating the promotion of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. This became the talk of the town in the state capital. The advertising campaign showed Fadnavis bowing to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's statue, with just one word written at the bottom—Devabhau. This is the nickname Fadnavis wants his followers and supporters to use publicly. The campaign was massive, covering most of the newspapers, news channels, and social media as well as billboards in many parts of Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai. Interestingly, there was no mention of who released the campaign. This provided ammunition to the opposition parties, with some asking questions with regard to it.

The controversy over Fadnavis emerging victorious after the stressful days of the Maratha agitation in Mumbai and the uncertainty created by it, and then taking up a media outreach campaign, may go on for some weeks. However, the larger picture seems to be that the BJP has decided to go with Devendra Fadnavis as the face for the upcoming civic polls in Maharashtra, and there seems to be an attempt at creating the personality cult of Fadnavis, instead of "collective leadership", within the BJP in the state. This brings us to the question of whether the party, which always spoke of "nation first, party next and individual last", is now moving to a formula of “hero worship” by projecting just one leader as the face of the political organisation in Maharashtra.

Historically, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the RSS, has always believed that a personality cult or hero worship should be avoided in politics. The RSS called it "Vyakti Puja", meaning hero worship or projection of only one person as the face of the organisation or the government. The RSS had always maintained that personality worship, which happened in the cases of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and some other leaders, was damaging to the political organisation in the long run. However, in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the think tank, under the leadership of late BJP leader Arun Jaitly, convinced the RSS that building a “larger-than-life personality” as the face of the BJP was the only way to counter the UPA, which seemingly had what they called a "weak political leadership" in the form of Dr Manmohan Singh. The RSS was convinced, and that is how Narendra Modi became the face of the BJP and the RSS. This experiment has worked wonders for the BJP for over a decade. Now the question is whether they want a similar experiment in Maharashtra.

The other big question is, what is so special about Maharashtra and Devendra Fadnavis that this experiment is being done in this state? The BJP has been strong in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. They also won the last assembly polls in Haryana. But in all these four states they have appointed chief ministers who are relatively faceless leaders and don’t have a national image. But somehow in Maharashtra, they have shown trust in the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis. One of the reasons is that despite all its efforts, the BJP has not been able to defeat the opposition forces in Maharashtra as it has been able to do in states like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. In Maharashtra, it still needs a skilful, mature and trustworthy face who, on the one hand, can manoeuvre the alliance partners and, on the other, follow the high command's orders with full compliance.

Whatever the reasons, it is clear that the BJP has decided to project Devendra Fadnavis as the top leader and the party face for the upcoming civic polls. It is apparent that they will groom and cultivate Fadnavis for future opportunities at the national level too. The way the Maratha agitation was handled by Fadnavis is being commended by the BJP high command in New Delhi, and it seems that in the near future, the state unit of the party will be completely under Fadnavis’s control. For the BJP, a new hero has been found in Maharashtra and New Delhi, and keeping its earlier ideology of avoiding personality cults aside, the party will, at least for the time being, take the path of single-handed leadership in Maharashtra.

Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune.