Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari 
Eknath Shinde is turning out to be a slippery character for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in poll-bound Maharashtra where he was installed by it as a stopgap chief minister of the Maha Yuti two years back, sidelining its own — Devendra Fadnavis.
At that time, pulling down the Uddhav Thackeray government had become more important to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah. It forced Fadnavis to accept a demotion to deputy chief ministership after being the chief minister from 2014 to 2019.
Now, the BJP would like to believe that it calls the shots in the state. But the fact is that trouble is brewing for it each passing day after the Lok Sabha polls, Shinde, the BJP’s trusted guy, is giving the impression that he is neither a stopgap chief minister nor a pushover when the time comes to decide the next chief ministerial candidate of the alliance.
The chief minister’s body language has suddenly changed after his Shiv Sena (Shinde) led by him scored a better strike rate in the polls despite several impediments put up by the ‘Maha Shakti’, a euphemism for the BJP in the alliance. Now that Shinde has smelt success in the Lok Sabha polls, it’s bad news for the BJP.
As Fadnavis is raring to get the key post back after the polls, there could be many a slip between the cup and the lip as the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi is the first to have got its act together.
There has been much speculation in the media that Fadnavis could be the next BJP president replacing J.P. Nadda, thereby implying that he could be kicked upwards, away from the Maharashtra scene.
Fadnavis is not amused by the reports which he dismisses. But his supporters are perplexed over the purported moves to shift him.
In Maharashtra’s Mahabharat, time will tell who is ‘Kaurav’ and who is ‘Pandav’, but it looks like Fadnavis is being put in the unenviable place of ‘Abhimanyu’ facing a chakravyuh in which he is confused over who is his friend and well-wisher and who is his enemy.
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The most powerful man of the BJP in Maharashtra is under an invisible siege due to his stature in the party. He has also earned many an enemy. Being a Brahmin in the politics of Maharashtra is also not an asset.
Fifty-four year-old Fadnavis is seen among the handful of possible future leaders of the party at the national level where a race is reported to be on between him, 59-year-old home minister Shah and 52-year-old Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath.
Shinde, who has his humble origins as an auto-rickshaw driver, is an opportunist to the core and ambitious too, after playing second fiddle to the Thackerays for long without a murmur.
Like an auto-rickshaw driver who takes shortcuts through lanes and bylanes to avoid a traffic jam on the main road, Shinde is more focused on getting the job done than on the means by which it is accomplished. He knows that every man has his price and finds nothing wrong with that.
A section of Fadnavis supporters harbours suspicion against Shinde due to the consistent attacks launched by Manoj Jarange Patil on the deputy chief minister regarding the Maratha reservation issue. Virtually from day one of his agitation, Fadnavis has been Jarange Patil’s favourite punching bag.
Shinde is taking steps with a purpose. He has sent his party’s observers to 133 of the 288 assembly constituencies in the state, signalling that he will be a tough customer in the seat allocation business.
There are wheels within wheels as the BJP top brass does not look unduly worried over Shinde’s moves. Some political observers believe that the rapport built by Shinde with leaders like Amit Shah could see him in the BJP subsequently. The rationale being given by these observers is that Shinde being a Maratha fulfills the BJP’s quest for a top Maratha leader.
The BJP is not that pleased with deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar whose Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction could win only one seat in the parliamentary elections and he miserably failed to win the Baramati Lok Sabha seat despite the BJP declaring that it wanted to marginalise Sharad Pawar. Ajit has also declared that his party would go solo in the civic elections which could be held soon after the assembly polls.
A section of the BJP also feels that the party should dump Ajit sooner rather than later as roping him in has not been liked by a sizeable section of the party as also the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Besides, it is said that Shinde has kept the BJP top brass in good humour from day one. The talk in political circles is that a leader like Shinde is more suitable for central leaders like Shah, who have vowed to marginalise Thackeray in whichever way possible.
Shinde is neither a great orator nor an organiser, but being the chief minister of the premier state, he is said to be the most resourceful. So, the BJP has to ensure victory of Shinde’s candidates in the assembly polls rather than Shinde’s Shiv Sena, which is a rag-tag force carved out of the original Shiv Sena. Right or wrong, but a section of the BJP suspects that leaders like Shah are betting on Shinde rather than their leaders. Fadnavis has remained more of a rival for Shah.
There have been permutations and combinations between the leaders of the Maha Yuti. While Shinde and Deputy chief minister Ajit get along well with Shah, Shinde and Fadnavis are not getting along that well as the latter feels the chief minister is doing business with the BJP high command ignoring him. Fadnavis gets along well with Ajit as Sharad Pawar is the bugbear of both.
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Fadnavis has already made it clear that since the BJP is the elder brother in the Maha Yuti, it will contest the largest number of seats from the total 288.
But it is shying away from declaring that the next chief minister of Maha Yuti will be from the BJP. Interestingly, Shinde and Ajit’s NCP to have been maintaining silence on this issue. Being the senior-most among the trio, Ajit is a strong contender for the post. And their silence suggests anything can happen after the polls. Nobody can rule out post-poll permutations and combinations.
In journalism, one of the main principles for a reporter is that ‘when in doubt, find it out’. The Maha Yuti, however, is acting differently: ‘When in doubt, leave it out’ is its stance so far on the issue of the chief ministerial candidate. There are fears that the issue could tear the BJP-led alliance asunder.
A prominent Opposition leader, with his tongue firmly in the cheek, remarked that there was no need for the Maha Yuti to declare its chief ministerial candidate as it was not going to win the polls.
Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are New Delhi-based journalists.