Why the Bihar victory is a feather in Vinod Tawde’s hat

Gracious about his role in the resounding victory, Tawde credited “teamwork”, saying he merely tried to carry out the task assigned by the party to the best of his abilities.

For Tawde, who had worked in Maharashtra for more than three decades, Bihar was understandably a challenge. The first breakthrough came when he joined the team that broke the Janata Dal (U)-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) alliance led by then chief minister Nitish Kumar ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Kumar returned to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) fold to forge a JD(U)-BJP alliance, which he continued to steer as chief minister.

Tawde was groomed by two prominent Maharashtra leaders, the late Pramod Mahajan and the late Gopinath Munde, and was once seen as a front-runner for the chief minister’s post. However, the state’s political landscape changed dramatically in 2014, with the rise of PM Modi at the Centre and Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra.

The transition from Maharashtra to Delhi politics was against his wishes; all the more reason why the BJP-JD(U) victory in Bihar would have given him cause to smile.

Party insiders say the BJP’s central leadership is likely to entrust him with another responsibility in Uttar Pradesh, keeping the upcoming Assembly elections in sight.

A career marked by highs and lows

A Maratha leader with origins in coastal Konkan, Tawde began his political career with the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and moved on to holding multiple roles within the organisation. He went on to serve as the general secretary (organisation) in the Maharashtra BJP in 1995, the youngest president of the BJP’s Mumbai unit in 1999, and the Opposition leader in the state Legislative Council from 2011 to 2014.

In 2014, he made his electoral debut by contesting the Assembly elections from the Borivali constituency in western Mumbai, a BJP stronghold. Five years later, Tawde was confident of an easy win in the 2019 Assembly polls. However, at the eleventh hour, he was denied a ticket, leaving him in political wilderness. “It was not just a shock for Tawde but everybody in the BJP,” a Tawde confidant recalled.

Unlike others who made their feelings against Fadnavis public, Tawde quietly resumed working for the party, helping Sunil Rane, who had replaced him in Borivali. Within a couple of years, in 2021, Tawde made a comeback as a national general secretary in J P Nadda’s Delhi team.

Tawde’s Delhi innings was relatively smoother as compared to the upheaval he faced in Maharashtra as a cabinet minister, when he was downsized twice and divested of portfolios such as medical education and school education in the Fadnavis-led Shiv Sena-BJP government (2014-2019).

Taking cognisance of his ability to strategise and deliver results, the BJP had assigned him an important role in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, where he was named convener for poll planning and preparations.

Tawde’s political journey has also seen its share of controversies. In the 2024 Assembly elections in Maharashtra, he was embroiled in a cash-for-votes scam where the Opposition accused him of distributing cash among voters, a charge he vehemently denied. He later sent defamation notices to Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi for making false allegations.

For Tawde, Friday’s win would have marked a vindication of his patience, echoing the sentiment he expressed in 2021: “In the BJP, you should just work. My patience has been rewarded”.

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