Devendra Fadnavis has a renowned surname. For a when, he was even compared favourably with the man who produced it renowned — Nana Phadnavis, the Chanakya of the Maratha Empire. Today, nonetheless, the resonance is lost. Let alone Chanakya, the man is not undertaking justice even to the post of leader of the opposition in a state exactly where he was the CM.
Which Chanakya would stoop to soap operas starring Sushant Singh Rajput’s girlfriend or Kangana Ranaut? Or bank on lapdog channels such as Republic Television? Using a pandemic to score points is no political punditry either.
Although each are Maharashtrian Brahmins, Fadnavis shares no kinship with his historical namesake he is a ‘Deshastha’, a neighborhood whose roots are in central India, whereas Nana Phadnavis was a ‘Chitpawan’, who come from coastal Maharashtra, Velas close to Shrivardhan to be precise.
To commence with, Phadnavis was not a surname. It was the workplace of the finance minister below the Peshwas. Derived from two Persian words, ‘farad’ and ‘navis’, it translates into English as ‘maker of the lists’.
The Peshwas, Brahmins once again, started as ministers but at some point took more than the reins by disempowering Shivaji’s successors. Nana Phadnavis, born Balaji Janardan Bhanu, was not merely the chancellor but the de facto ruler of the Maratha Empire in the late 18th century.
Under him, the Marathas held sway from the Kumaon hills in the north to Cauvery river in the South and from Gujarat to Odisha. To the British, whom he kept at bay for 3 decades, Nana Phadnavis was the Maratha Machiavelli.
Changed man
The only Machiavellian move by Devendra Fadnavis has been the marginalisation of his rivals, as properly as prospective rivals in the BJP as soon as the Modi-Shah duo chose him as the CM in 2014, more than established leaders such as Nitin Gadkari and Eknath Khadse.
Fadnavis has changed so significantly given that then, that it is not possible to recognise him. Earlier, as an opposition leader, he charmed the media, cornering the Congress government in Television debates as properly as in the assembly. Today, he is behaving like a sore loser acquiring into slanging matches with second-rung Sena leader Sanjay Raut and predicting the demise of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government on a month-to-month basis.
He’s even referred to as for President’s rule to be imposed in Maharashtra given that ‘dissenters’ such as Arnab Goswami of Republic Television and Kangana Ranaut had been sought to be silenced. The irony of ‘urban Naxals’, such as Sudha Bharadwaj, Anand Teltumbde and Fr Stan Swamy, is lost on him.
This is the similar man who spoke softly and spoke sense. Today, he yells at the top rated of his voice, replacing debate with demagoguery. As opposition leader, he went soon after the Adarsh and the irrigation scams but as CM, he applied them as bargaining chips.
Checkmating rivals
In reality, Fadnavis reminds 1 of the central character in the 1985 Marathi musical Padgham a student leader who goes from clenched fist to folded hands as he metamorphoses into a politician, creating compromise soon after compromise to head the incredibly method he had rebelled against.
Incidentally, Fadnavis was a student leader. He was just 21 when he was elected corporator, 27 when he became mayor of Nagpur and 44 when he became the CM.
Nana Phadnavis checkmated enemies although his legendary network of spies, Fadnavis has his mates in the media, who helped him slander celebration rivals Khadse, Vinod Tawde, Pankaja Munde, all had been embroiled in controversies. The initial two did not even get celebration tickets in the 2019 polls when Pankaja, daughter of the late Gopinath Munde, lost to her cousin, Dhananjay Munde of the NCP.
The similar coterie of court poets constructed up Fadnavis’s profile. Today, it is challenging to consider of a rival to him in the state BJP.
Given the Peshwa history, Fadnavis is conscious that Maratha chieftains can not digest a Brahmin CM. He rubbed it in by acquiring Sambhaji Raje, the 13th direct descendant of Shivaji, nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2016. Sharad Pawar retorted by harking back to the instances when the Maratha Chhatrapati would appoint a Peshwa (chief minister), who in turn, would opt for a Fadnavis “I hadn’t witnessed a Fadnavis appointing a Chhatrapati until now.”
Flagship project
The CM was also busy to govern he was plotting against rivals and emulating Modi by campaigning for the celebration, even in municipal elections. Fadnavis’s flagship project, the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, did small to tackle drought and raise groundwater level, regardless of the around Rs 10,000 cr sunk in it. The Comptroller and Auditor-General also slammed the scheme for its lack of transparency. The MVA government has given that scrapped the scheme and decided to probe the irregularities in it.
At that time although, Fadnavis seemed invincible. So significantly so that senior Congress leaders Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and Harshvardhan Patil and a host of top rated NCP leaders defected to the BJP, such as yet another Shivaji descendant, Udayan Raje Bhosale.
So confident was he that Modi’s charisma would sweep the BJP back to energy in Maharashtra that Fadnavis roared in every of his rallies that he would return as CM ‘Me punha yein’. He even taunted Sharad Pawar, saying that the NCP lacked the stomach for a fight.
Nana Phadnavis was never ever so cocky. He was a group player who joined hands with 11 other chieftains to depose the unpopular Peshwa Raghunathrao in 1774. To fend off the British, he forged tactical alliances, even with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Nawab of Arcot.
This arrogance price Fadnavis dearly in 2019 when the BJP, which was confident of enhancing on its 2014 assembly poll tally of 122 seats, won just 105 seats. Sharad Pawar’s NCP won 54 seats, 14 seats much more than the final time. The Maratha chieftain showed that he had the guts for a fight. Soon, Fadnavis was to discover that the wily Maratha had a gameplan as properly. The accurate Phadnavis taught a lesson to the Fad-novice.
The 1979 Marathi classic, Simhasan, directed by Jabbar Patel and written by Arun Sadhu, who also penned Padgham, pales just before the twists and turns in the post-poll drama in 2019. Three young journalists have written books on it Sudhir Suryavanshi (Checkmate), Jitendra Dixit (35 Days) and Kamesh Sutar (36 Days). It will be most certainly be milked by Bollywood, if permitted.
However, it is by no signifies the finish for Devendra Fadnavis, who has time on his side. He can also take heart from the reality that his namesake survived the humiliating defeat of the Marathas at the battle of Panipat in 1761 and went on to restore the may possibly of the Maratha Empire.
The writer is an independent journalist primarily based in Mumbai.