Why Devendra Fadnavis And Manohar Lal Khattar Are Sitting Pretty In Maharashtra And Haryana

With the opposition in disarray, Devendra Fadnavis and Manohar Lal Khattar are poised to retain Maharashtra and Haryana. For Fadnavis, the only real challenge seems to be keeping the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance intact.

- Dnyanesh Jathar

Winning the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana will make the BJP stronger in Parliament. Come 2020, and eight Rajya Sabha seats—six from Maharashtra, including the one held by Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar—will fall vacant. If the BJP is able to win both the states by a good margin, it would win at least five seats in the upper house, thereby significantly boosting the Union government’s ability to pass crucial bills.

A Congress victory, on the other hand, will not only improve its Rajya Sabha numbers, but also help revive the grand old party at the national level. Having Mumbai, India’s financial capital, under its control can revive the Congress and the NCP organisationally as well.

Such an outcome, however, looks improbable. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is so confident of returning to power that, a day before he ended his Maha Janadesh Yatra, he declared that the BJP would soon launch a vijay yatra (success tour). “The yatra will end only after we succeed in hoisting the flag of the BJP-led grand alliance in the Maharashtra legislature,” said Fadnavis in Nashik.

The Maha Janadesh Yatra covered more than 150 assembly seats across the state in three phases. “We will win 90 per cent of these constituencies,” Fadnavis told THE WEEK.

A tall claim? Perhaps. But there is no doubt that Fadnavis, 49, has played his cards well. In 2014, when the relatively young legislator from Nagpur with no ministerial experience was sworn in as chief minister, everyone expected him to be overwhelmed by the responsibility of running a debt-ridden state plagued by droughts and agrarian crisis.

Five years since, not only has Fadnavis survived, but he has also checkmated his party rivals and the opposition. His vision, intellect, oratorial skills and genuine desire to solve problems have helped him gain a firm grip on the wheels of the administration.