Notes on a Mumbai gala: What Devendra Fadnavis’s star-studded inauguration reveals

The event underlined the subalternisation of Indian politics that has been underway as also its glamourisation, which seem to be at odds with each other but perhaps not so much after all.

It also underlined the emergence of women as a powerful constituency in the state. Not only did the new CM announce the continuation of the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana soon after taking over, he took the oath of office as “Devendra Sarita Gangadharrao Fadnavis”, adding the names of his parents to his. The Deputy CMs did likewise. This is the way they are described on the nameplates that hang outside their offices.

Gone are the days when oath-taking ceremonies were held in the confines of the Raj Bhavan or the Rashtrapati Bhavan and were brief and staid occasions. Now they are held in the open, in the midst of the aam aadmi and aam aurat whom the elected represent.

Earlier, the austere attire on these occasions was used to show a dedication to service. It has given way to flamboyance and the finest of fineries in which people turn out as politics has become more about optics (both Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar wore pink-hued jackets to give a message to women voters).

The PM and Fadnavis naturally evoked claps when they came on the stage but surprisingly it was Shinde who attracted a huge applause. Maharashtra has authored a new “non-elite” coalition model where a CM and a Deputy CM can swap positions in successive administrations, something that would have been unthinkable in the past.

Shinde did not look very upbeat to begin with. It was only when the PM patted his hand thrice after he took oath that a smile lit his face. Many believe that even as Shinde was bargaining hard for the Home Department, he was only trying to ensure that Urban Development remained with him. The new CM has made it clear that the Cabinet will be in place by December 16.

The applause for Shinde was about the success of a subaltern. It was about his rise from humble beginnings, clawing his way to the top, and managing to hold his own. He became a Maratha leader of consequence in the last two years and the “laadla” of women voters who decided that the Ladki Bahin Yojana should be rolled out in time for the Assembly elections and not the Lok Sabha polls.

The ‘last bastion’

Positioning himself differently from the “inaccessible” Uddhav Thackeray, with whom he broke ranks in 2022, Shinde opened the CM’s residence, “Varsha”, to ordinary people who could walk in, be heard, and served tea or a meal. And he opened the treasury for social welfare schemes. Though his party won 57 Assembly seats as opposed to Uddhav’s 20, it may not be the denouement of this Sena versus Sena saga.

Uddhav, conscious that he may be losing his core pro-Hindu constituency to Shinde, is already “course-correcting”. One of his close aides justified the demolition of the Babri Masjid, provoking protests from allies, and the Sena (UBT) leader may well move out of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The ultimate battle for the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is around the corner. To underline how important the BMC is to Uddhav, out of his party’s tally of 20 Assembly seats, 10 came from Mumbai.

The BJP also views the BMC as the “last bastion” it must conquer to push ahead with its plans for “urban renewal” and “slum redevelopment”. It is also a reason why it has treated Shinde with kid gloves. The BJP will need his help to capture the civic body and further weaken Uddhav’s hold in Maharashtra.

‘Supremely confident’ once more

While no party won an outright majority in the Assembly, political stability is implicit in the arithmetic.

The BJP is only a step away from capturing power on its own if the situation becomes sticky with the allies. Having won 132 seats, with a dozen party members who won on the symbol of either the Sena or the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the support of four Independents, the BJP could be home and dry even without the support of its allies. This may rein in both Shinde and Ajit dada.

The oath ceremony showed the subtle change that has come about in the body language of BJP leaders as they strode across the stage — supremely confident again — to greet allies N Chandrababu Naidu, Nitish Kumar, and Chirag Paswan on whose support they are dependent in the Centre. The Maharashtra results have made the June 4 verdict look like a thing of the past.

The other striking aspect of the ceremony was the thunderous applause for Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath as those on the stage were introduced one by one. Like his politics or not, it shows Adityanath’s growing popularity beyond UP.

There was a time, in 2018, when some in the RSS circles used to speak about Adityanath and Fadnavis as the two leaders who might play a “national role” in the future. But then, as Adityanath held his own, Fadnavis’s fortunes dipped before his eventual return to the top and he is back in reckoning.

A few days before he took over as CM, Fadnavis called himself a “modern-day Abhimanyu” who knew how to break the chakravyuh. He managed to do it with help from Delhi and Nagpur. But the battle has yet to be won and given the tasks he has set himself — such as the linking of rivers to generate employment and deal with drought — much will depend on how he takes along his BJP colleagues, allies, and those in the Opposition, weak as they may have become.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)