Fadanavis is facing political pressure and growing calls from alliance partner Shiv Sena as well as Opposition parties like the Congress and the NCP for a farm loan waiver.
Maharashtra's Chief Minister Devendra Fadanavis is sitting pretty after the success of the BJP in the civic and Zilla Parishad polls. The electoral success, which was nothing less than a mini-referendum involving both urban and rural electorates, also ensured that he would lead the party's election campaign in 2019. He has won the unprecedented confidence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The top leadership also attributed the success to Fadanavis. The posters, flexis, festoons and hoardings that went up after this victory showed the smiling faces of both Modi and Fadanavis only, and the image of Amit Shah was surprisingly missing from the post-election celebration posters and hoardings on the roads and roofs of Mumbai.
But successive droughts have made the farm economy weak in the state. Fadanavis is facing political pressure and growing calls from alliance partner Shiv Sena as well as Opposition parties like the Congress and the NCP for a farm loan waiver. The state, with the country's financial capital Mumbai as its capital, has a debt burden of Rs 4 lakh crores and is ill-equipped to oblige the farmers with the loan waiver. But Fadanavis has ignored the collective demand of both the Shiv Sena and the Opposition, who wanted the 'loan write-off formula' of Uttar Pradesh to be followed. Fadanavis has found a way that would not only help the farmers to overcome their problem but would also provide a permanent solution to their problems. He is ready to give capital subsidies to help farmers build irrigation and farm infrastructure. The CM has been advised by his bureaucrats that capital subsidies will boost agricultural productivity more than loan waivers.
Taking Maharashtra to a double-digit growth figure in the shadow of the droughts over the past four years, coupled with tapping private-public partnership to take mega projects to their logical end, is a real concern of the Fadanavis government. The state has not received adequate investments to generate employment. Thus Fadnavis is facing multiple problems.
But the well-educated Chief Minister was groomed as a corporator and legislator and, over the years, he acquired organisational and electoral skills.
First, in the Assembly elections where the BJP won 122 seats (27.8 per cent votes) in the October 2014 elections against the Shiv Sena's 63 (19.3 per cent votes), the BJP made the once-senior alliance partner Shiv Sena realise that they have to accept it as the "big brother".
Fadanavis is comfortably placed after the results of the civic and Zilla Parishad polls.
Yet, the pin-pricks of the Shiv Sena in the public domain against the Fadanavis-led government causes political embarrassments. The party's central leadership takes offence at Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's speeches when he is critical of both Fadanavis and Modi. The central leadership wants Fadnavis to find out a solution to this criticism so that it can be stopped, or at least toned down. This gives a signal to Fadanavis that the BJP central leadership is not in favour of snapping ties with the Shiv Sena.
Breaking the alliance with the Sena on small issues has not been a part of the BJP's culture and it understands that the Shiv Sena, however depleted, is still a force to reckon with in Maharashtra. Any break-up would only help the Congress and the NCP, who were next to the Shiv Sena in terms of total votes polled in 2014. Collectively, the Shiv Sena, the Congress, and the NCP polled 54.5 per cent votes.
Fadanavis, during the Mumbai municipal elections, described the Shiv Sena as a "party of extortionists". But he also knows that he will have to keep balance with an alliance partner.
The confrontation between the BJP and Shiv Sena would only help the Congress and the NCP. Fadanavis believes in an honourable compromise with the Sena on the condition that it tones down its anti-Modi rhetoric.
Fadanavis was chosen as the Chief Minister as he enjoyed a clean image and unquestioned integrity and commitment towards the party and RSS. But he has also earned some negative impressions, particularly among his senior colleagues, who feel that he is concerned more about his image rather effective delivery through efficient governance. He will have to improve the delivery chart of the state government, especially in the areas of real estate and urban development.
'Poll' position
BJP's triumph in civic polls ensures that Fadnavis will lead the party in 2019
He has won the unprecedented confidence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
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 "Devendra Fadnavis")
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