Sukanya Shantha 
Nagpur: On October 25, as Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister and five-time member of the legislative assembly from the Nagpur South West constituency, filed his nomination, his supporters wearing “DF Army” t-shirts organised roadshows across the city.
A photo of Fadnavis, aiming a rifle at a point off the frame, became these roadshows’ main prop, across town. This symbolic image of an aggressive Fadnavis intended to set the tone for the former chief minister’s election campaign.
Not too far away, the campaign of his opposing candidate from the Congress, Prafulla Gudadhe Patil, was being planned. In response to the rifle photo, Gudadhe Patil chose a charkha, a spinning wheel. Over the past few weeks, his supporters claim, this spinning wheel has come to symbolise Gudadhe Patil’s “simplicity and determination” to fight a tough battle against Fadnavis in the constituency. Gudadhe Patil says he has always maintained: “Sattecha nahi tar satyecha ladha aahe (tt’s not a fight for power, but a battle for the truth).”
Fadnavis is a seasoned politician, undefeated since 1999, but so is Gudadhe Patil.
A two-time corporator in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, Gudadhe Patil had contested against Fadnavis in 2014. Amid the “Modi wave,” Gudadhe Patil had managed to garner 54,976 votes, compared to Fadnavis’s 1,13,918 votes. In 2019, the Congress decided to field Ashish Deshmukh against Fadnavis, who secured 59,893 votes. Fadnavis’s votes had dropped by 4,681 votes since 2014. Deshmukh later joined the BJP and is contesting from the Saoner seat in Nagpur district.
Gudadhe Patil claims Fadnavis’s popularity has shrunk over the years. “In 2014, while I managed to get 55,000 votes, it is to be noted that other candidates from the BSP, old Shiv Sena, and old NCP had collectively managed 25,000 votes. So, that meant 80,000 voters didn’t want Fadnavis to come to power.” Over the past few years, the political equation has changed. The NCP (Sharad Pawar) and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) are now part of the Mahavikas Aghadi alliance, which the Congress is also a part of, and the BSP’s popularity has shrunk considerably. So, the fight, in a constituency with only 12 candidates, is considered to be bipolar.
‘Office hours’
The Wire visited Gudadhe Patil’s office in Nagpur’s middle-class neighbourhood, Trimurti Nagar. Every afternoon, between 2 pm and 4 pm, the Congress candidate is in his office. “People walk in with their issues on most afternoons. They have not been heard to in many years, so all I am doing right now is hearing them out. I will work out a roadmap eventually,” he claims.
Prafulla Gudadhe Patil campaigns in Nagpur. Photo: Sukanya Shantha/The Wire.
One of his party members says, “This kind of accessibility was never possible from Fadnavis. One, because he is a national leader and has several responsibilities; and two, because he has never tried to build this kind of connection with the people of his constituency.” When Nagpur almost submerged during the 2023 floods, people claim that Fadnavis was nowhere to be seen.
Besides the workers of Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar) and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), journalists, lawyers, and activists from across Maharashtra and a few others from other states have stationed themselves in Nagpur. “More than the parties (MVA), we are here for Prafulla dada,” said Anil Pawar, a land rights activist from Mulshi in Pune district. Researcher Jinda Sandbhor, who is credited for leading Congress to success in Rajasthan in 2018 has also been working closely with the MVA workers in the constituency for a few months.
‘Kept star campaigners away’
The Mahayuti, of which the BJP is a part, has been riding on the ‘Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojna’ scheme launched in July. But the pitch, over the past two weeks, has slowly shifted back to the usual BJP style of communalisation and fear-mongering. BJP’s star campaigners, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have been repeating claims about “jihad” and using the communal line of “katenge toh batenge (divided, we perish)“.
A senior BJP leader, considered close to Fadnavis and in charge of handling the election in several districts, told The Wire that he has intentionally kept star campaigners away from the region he is responsible for. “They speak of things that don’t always resonate with the locals, and that can cause unnecessary derailment. Let our work in the region speak,” he said.
There is another “silent campaign” underway across Nagpur. Pamphlets, without any political symbols but clearly with a right-wing agenda, are being distributed door-to-door. These pamphlets, using indirect messaging, appeal to voters to vote for those who can put an end to “Dharma Parivartan” and work in “the interest of the OBCs.” Similar posters have also been put up outside big and small temples across the city.
‘There is another “silent campaign” underway across Nagpur. Pamphlets, without any political symbols but clearly with a right-wing agenda, are being distributed door-to-door.’ Photo: Sukanya Shantha/The Wire.
‘Father and son’
It was believed that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological mentor of the BJP, had distanced itself from the latter during the parliamentary elections earlier this year. The growing gulf was further intensified after the BJP party president J.P. Nadda had claimed in an interview that the BJP was capable of running the party and did not need any support from the RSS. But the hatchet now seems to be buried, and the organisation seems to be actively working for the BJP candidates across the state.
A senior RSS functionary in Nagpur compared the differences and the subsequent coming together of the RSS and the BJP to a “father and son relationship.” “When a father advises his son not to do a certain thing but the son goes ahead and commits the mistake, all that the father can do is wait. And once the mistake is made, the father reminds him that he had told him so. He eventually helps the son set things right.” The functionary said the RSS has done exactly that and has returned to the forefront, working across the state and also in Fadnavis’s constituency.
Gudadhe Patil, however, says the story of differences and reconciliation is all planted.
“The RSS loves to take credit for both failure and success. Who would know them better than me?” he asks. His confidence in knowing the RSS comes from the fact that his father, Vinod Gudadhe Patil, was twice elected as MLA from the BJP before he moved to the Congress. “Since my youth, I would see the RSS men come to this very office (which previously belonged to my father) and try to sell baseless ideas to my father. I would silently observe them and could tell the extent to which these men would sell bogus ideas,” he says.
Caste reading
Gudadhe Patil belongs to the Kunbi community, an OBC caste that is both numerically and politically dominant in the region. Political analysts believe his OBC identity gives him an edge in a constituency where over 70,000 voters belong to his caste group. His appeal, they feel, has transcended beyond his immediate caste group and has, over time, helped him gain popularity even among other caste groups. The constituency has over 40,000 voters from the Teli community and around 20,000 from the Mali caste.
The BJP too has worked closely with these caste groups for several decades. In addition, they have natural voters in the Brahmin community, who make up approximately 50,000 votes in the constituency.
With no alternate option available, there is a possibility of considerable swing in the votes of the Scheduled Caste (mostly Buddhist) community, which accounts to over a lakh votes, in favour of the Congress, political analysts have estimated. Since the last assembly election in 2014, 20,000 new voters have been added in the constituency and Gudadhe Patil claims that they were all enrolled on the Congress’s booth set up across the constituency.
‘Criticism for Bahujans only’
The Congress’s critics have a very different reading of the situation.
The fact that the Congress party has fielded the maximum number of candidates from the Kunbi community in Vidarbha would work against Gudadhe Patil, they say. To this, Gudadhe Patil responds, “No one ever asks why and how a Brahmin (Nitin Gadkari) contests from Nagpur, a land of Bahujans, and gets elected to parliament. Or, for that matter, how a Brahmin (Fadnavis) contests from here (his constituency) and later goes on to become chief minister. Criticisms are always reserved only for Bahujan candidates.”
In the past five years, Fadnavis has initiated several projects in his constituency. Among the main attractions are the indoor sports stadium, the development of ‘London Street,’ green gyms, new sewer lines, and the construction of roads. But, to enjoy them, Gudadhe Patil says, “There are no young people left here. This place has slowly become a place of retired men and women. Their children have all moved away to Mumbai and Pune in search of jobs.”