As the BJP led government completes four years in office this Wednesday, it is time for the ruling party to present a report card which would perhaps take stock of what all has been achieved in the past four years. All that was promised in the manifesto which the BJP presented to voters ahead of 2014 assembly elections in Maharashtra may not have been delivered but perhaps some of it has been.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has claimed that Maharashtra’s fiscal health is good and he is confident of winning the next elections too. Politically, these may be the right and diplomatic things to say but with issues such as drought, various agitations by farmers and Maratha community and constantly bickering alliance partners, the chief minister may perhaps be a worried man.
However, one of the biggest achievements for CM Fadnavis after four years in office is maintaining constant backing from the prime minister and BJP party president.
Over 200 talukas in Maharashtra this year have received low rainfall, resulting in a major deficiency in water availability for the coming rabi season. Fadnavis himself is very much aware how drought affects politics in any Indian constituency.
In Bhandara-Gondia Lok Sabha constituency, when the BJP candidate lost the recent by-polls, the chief minister attributed this defeat mainly to anger among people over drought in the area. He is now personally visiting regions such as Marathwada and supervising drought relief measures.
In the past four years, two things that the chief minister has been able to achieve is a) maintaining support from the BJP top brass which has continuously stood by him and b) very positive personal image management. If one sees Maharashtra’s political history, it becomes very obvious that staying put in the chief minister’s chair has been a tough task for every incumbent after about two and a half years in office. With 288 members in the assembly and over 144 in the ruling party or coalition, it’s a very tough task to keep all happy after about two and a half years.
The demand for change of leadership crops up from among the ruling party MLAs after every two or three years. Fadnavis has overcome this challenge mainly because of constant and continued support he enjoys from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. This is mainly because of the very high personal credibility that Chief Minister Fadnavis has been able to maintain during his tenure.
However, the challenges in the coming months are going to be steep. Alliance partner Shiv Sena, with its 64 seats in the assembly, has been making all the wrong noises in the past couple of years and is showing indications that it may create trouble during the election season. The anger among farmers because of continued agrarian crisis is going to only grow with this year’s monsoon being below the usually desired mark and various groups demanding reservations in education and government jobs are likely to intensify their agitations closer to the election season.
The most important thing that Fadnavis will have to do is to take the alliance partners along. It seems that he is planning for cabinet expansion and it is obvious that ahead of the election season, he wants to accommodate some of the disgruntled elements in his government. These political manoeuvres will have to be managed tactfully. Whether the BJP would be able to repeat its performance of 2014 in the polls of 2019 will all depend on how they handle their alliance partners.
Fuzzy logic
