Mumbai: As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unanimously elected Devendra Fadnavis as its legislative party leader inside Maharashtra’s Vidhan Bhavan, some party members gathered outside held a placard, saying ‘te Punha ale (he is back)’. It was almost like a vindication of Fadnavis’ ‘me Punha yein’ (I’ll be back) campaign after his first stint as chief minister from 2014 to 2019.

He did come back in 2019, but the effort bombed as legislators of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP who had supported the Fadnavis-led government, trickled away one after the other, causing the government to fall in 72 hours, and spurring a multitude of memes on ‘me punha yein’.

Fadnavis is now set to take up the position for the third time, and his freshest stint as CM could look very different from his first two terms.

For one, this time, the Fadnavis-led government will be much more stable with 132 MLAs of its own in the 288-member house now, as against 105 in 2019 and 122 in 2014.

The would-be CM is now a seasoned administrator, as against a newbie in 2014, having a firm handle on the state’s bureaucracy and police forces.

However, this is the first time that Fadnavis may have to work with two deputy CMs considering the BJP has requested Ajit Pawar as well as Eknath Shinde to join the government as Deputy CM. Both are strong, ambitious leaders from the dominant Maratha caste who would want to find ways of making their presence in the government felt. While Pawar has consented, Shinde is yet to give a confirmation on joining the government as Deputy CM.

On Wednesday, after Mahayuti leaders met Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan to stake claim on the government, Fadnavis tried to strike a concordant note. “Who is the CM, deputy CM are just technicalities for us. The three of us will work together like earlier.”

However, BJP leaders and bureaucrats ThePrint spoke to believe that while there could be instances of friction, a sweeping mandate for the BJP will help Fadnavis put his stamp on the government.

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Power within the CMO

In 2014, Fadnavis walked into his sixth-floor Mantralaya office as a three-term cerebral MLA who had never had the administrative experience of working in a government.

He came with many fresh ideas—a Right to Services Act in which essential services will be delivered within a notified timeframe; a public portal ‘Aaple Sarkar’ for complaints to cut down people’s multiple visits to government offices for basic services; a thrust on industrial investment by cutting down the number of permits required to operate in Maharashtra; a war room to remove roadblocks for key infrastructure projects, and so on.

The CM then was flanked by some senior colleagues in key positions, such as Eknath Khadse who held the revenue portfolio, or Sudhir Mungantiwar who held the finance portfolio.

However, his style of functioning as CM soon made it clear to everyone in the government that while he may be inexperienced, he was no pushover.

Fadnavis deployed officers on special duty (OSDs), many of whom were private individuals, and a team of the chief ministers’ interns—graduates and post-graduates from some of India’s most esteemed institutions—were brought on board to work on flagship schemes, to coordinate with different government departments. During Fadnavis’ tenure as CM from 2014 to 2019, the CMO became a powerful overarching organism within the government with every department feeding into it, quite like Narendra Modi’s PMO.

“There were ministers in the government at that time who had a problem with that kind of functioning. But, that style of functioning of Fadnavis is unlikely to change because that’s how he works. Even as deputy CM in the Eknath Shinde-led government, Fadnavis brought in his own team to work for the DCM’s office. Now, with two deputy CMs this could be a source of friction,” a senior BJP leader who did not wish to be named told ThePrint.

Fadnavis and Shinde, for instance, have had differences over a number of issues, including bureaucratic and police appointments, when the former was deputy CM and latter was CM. Pawar and Shinde, too, have clashed over certain proposals that the finance department had raised questions over.

Moreover, when Ajit Pawar was deputy CM to Uddhav Thackeray in the MVA government, his office had gotten a resolution passed through the general administration department to have all files that are sent to the CMO marked to him as well.

A senior bureaucrat in the Maharashtra government who wished to not be named, however, said having a strong CMO overlooking different departments during Fadnavis’ reign between 2014 and 2019 helped the state government work with a cohesive vision.

“This time, too, the majority for the BJP is so much that nobody is in a position to throw tantrums beyond a point. Ajit Pawar is a senior experienced and mature administrator. Eknath Shinde, too, will have to eventually abide by the CM’s decision, and a weak opposition will further enable Devendra Fadnavis to drive his agenda,” he said.

‘Fadnavis knows his people’

In 2014, when Fadnavis took over as CM, he was extremely distrustful of the state’s civil services, which had just come out of a 15-year rule of a coalition of the Congress and the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the state. All governments have an informal list of their most preferred bureaucrats, and Fadnavis in his early days as CM was public about his issues with civil servants. After about a year in office, Fadnavis had said that the civil services, especially the middle and lower rungs, were not fully cooperating with the new government.

“To change a system is very easy. It is an executive decision. But, to implant that decision in the mindset of the bureaucracy is very difficult,” Fadnavis had said at ThePrint’s Off The Cuff in 2018 while speaking on the challenges he faced in digitising several of the government’s services.

However, having spent 10 years now in the administrative system—first five as CM, then 2.5 years as Opposition leader and 2.5 years as deputy CM—Fadnavis is now very well networked within the bureaucratic and police circles and knows the strengths of every official.

“He knows who worked for him when he was CM. He also knows which officers were there with him even during his bad time, when he was out of power,” an IAS officer who did not wish to be named said.

When the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power, Fadnavis as Opposition leader had leaked internal government reports, prompting leaders from the ruling alliance to allege that the BJP was using bureaucrats to try and destabilise their government.

“With all of this knowledge, Devendra Fadnavis in his fresh stint as CM might deploy bureaucrats more effectively, like how PM Modi is known to rule through his set of trusted bureaucrats,” the above-mentioned officer said.

Home is key

A BJP leader who wished to not be named recalled that in 2014, when discussions about portfolio allocation were underway, a much junior Fadnavis back then was clear about one thing. He wanted to keep the home portfolio for himself.

This time, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena is pressing for the home portfolio. The party wanted the Mahayuti to retain incumbent Eknath Shinde as the CM, but gave up its claim on the BJP’s request. In return, party sources have said, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena has demanded the home portfolio, among other things.

“Fadnavis has been used to exercising his control on the state’s affairs through a control on the home department, the police machinery. With Ajit Pawar likely to get finance, if home goes to the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the CM won’t be left with a portfolio of real clout,” the above-mentioned BJP leader said.

He pointed to how late BJP leader Gopinath Munde as deputy CM “enjoyed more power and popularity than CM Manohar Joshi” in the Shiv Sena-BJP government of 1995-1999 as he also held the home portfolio.

In the three Congress-NCP governments that followed, the Congress always got the CM’s post, while the NCP got its share of power with the home portfolio.

On Wednesday, after being elected as the BJP’s legislative party leader, and effectively its pick for the CM’s post, Fadnavis told the party legislators gathered at Vidhan Bhavan that within a coalition government, there will be a few things that they will get, and a few things that they will have to let go of.

“We have not come into politics simply to run after posts,” he said.

It may have been a consolatory message to his party colleagues, or a message to Shinde, or both. The verdict is still out.

(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)

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