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There is a saying in Marathi, which when translated into English means: “Turn‘ bhakri “(unleavened bread made from sorghum or bajra, part of traditional Maharashtra cuisine) when it is cooking, or it will burn.”
This phrase is often used in politics to justify veterans’ relaxation for new faces. However, a cook with even rudimentary culinary skills will agree that turning the “bhakri” too soon can make it half cooked.
So will the decision of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to abandon veterans for new faces while announcing their nominations to the Maharashtra Legislative Council will lead to a similar situation?
While rejecting claims of established names like former ministers Eknath Khadse, Vinod Tawde, Pankaja Munde (the daughter of the late BJP veteran, Gopinath Munde) and Chandrashekhar Bavankule, he instead nominated a new crop of leaders.
This also indicates that, despite discontent over his operating style, former prime minister and current opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis is firmly in the chair.
The four nominees, Gopichand Padalkar, Pravin Datke, Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, and Dr. Ajit Gopchade, are said to be loyal to Fadnavis, who also got away with it when his man, Pravin Darekar, was chosen as the Leader of the Opposition. in the Legislative Council. .
It is no coincidence that at least two of the leaders who were in the fray for the nomination, Khadse and Pankaja, were seen as rivals to Fadnavis for the post of prime minister and disagree with him.
While Khadse had confirmed that he had sought a seat in the Upper House of the Legislature, it was also claimed that Pankaja could be the Leader of the Opposition replacing Darekar after being elected to the council.
Fadnavis loyalists claim that the four nominees are part of the BJP’s largest project to foster alternative leadership among the dominant Marathas and OBCs.
Padalkar, who belongs to the Dhangar (pastor) community, had contested the recent election of Lok Sabha de Sangli as a candidate for Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) of Prakash Ambedkar, and obtained more than three lakh votes.
He then joined the BJP and fought unsuccessfully in the Baramati Assembly polls against the current Deputy Chief Minister and PCN leader Ajit Pawar.
Dhangars are said to represent the second highest percentage of votes in Maharashtra, alongside the dominant caste group Maratha-Kunbi. However, they lack representative political representation in the Legislature and Parliament.
The BJP has to rely on its ally Mahadev Jankar of the Rashtriya Samaj Party (RSP) to get Dhangar’s votes, and therefore may be looking at Padalkar, who was associated with the controversial demagogue Hindutva Sambhajirao Bhide ‘Guruji’ to deliver the products.
The BJP has another Gordian knot to untie. Before coming to power in 2014, the party had promised to approve the Dhangars’ demand for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category.
However, this had fallen out of favor with the tribes and did not meet legal requirements. Coopting Padalkar, who incidentally was with the BJP, before switching to the VBA, may aim to offset some of this anger.
Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, the son of former Deputy Chief Minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil, is a former deputy of Rajya Sabha.
Although their authority has seen a decline since the days when they held great authority over the region, the Mohite Patils, who are Marathas, still exert influence in parts of Solapur in western Maharashtra.
Datke, a tough man from Fadnavis, is a former mayor of Nagpur as their leader. Hailing from a family with strong Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ties, Datke belongs to the OBC Bari community, which has considerable numbers in parts of eastern Vidarbha.
The dark horse, Gopchade, is a doctor and belongs to the Veershaiva-Lingayat community, which has a presence in parts of Maharashtra such as Marathwada and western Maharashtra.
A high-ranking BJP leader said there was anger at the base when Padalkar and Mohite Patil, who were newcomers to the party, were chosen on “loyal” claims.
Some pesky leaders are also said to be rallying around the faction loyal to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who is at odds with the Fadnavis camp.
Fadnavis, who emerged as the dark horse for the post of prime minister in 2014, and had almost undisputed dominance over the government and the party for five years, is accused of incorrectly brushing against many while exercising his authority.
The murmurs against Fadnavis’s operating style, which grew louder after ally Shiv Sena split to form the government with Congress and the PCN, may now be more strident.
“There is great discontent in the BJP with those with little contribution to the party being chosen for key positions in the recent past. It is obvious that sooner or later we will have to pay the price. Pankaja’s claim was rejected because he lost recent Assembly polls, but the same logic has not been applied to Padalkar, “said one leader, alleging that these decisions could affect the party’s social base.
Unlike Fadnavis, who is a Brahmin, Pankaja and Khadse are “Bahuyan” (not Brahmins) and belong to the OBC category. The CBOs, a conglomerate of around 500 classes and communities in all religious denominations, make up about 53% of Maharashtra’s population.
The BJP and its previous avatar, Jan Sangh, were seen as a part of the cultural, urban and social elite, namely the Brahmins and the mercantile communities, before the main leader, the late Vasantrao Bhagwat, launched a project of social engineering to bring it to the masses.
Bhagwat was a mentor to leaders like the late Pramod Mahajan, his brother-in-law Gopinath Munde, and others to expand the BJP base.
Today, despite the BJP being seen as a feast with a dominant Brahman culture, the foundation of its base in Maharashtra lies in the combination ‘Madhav’ (Mali, Dhangar, Vanjari), with the additional ‘M’ to denote a section of dominant Marathas.
While Pankaja is a Vanjari, a community that has a strong presence in Marathwada and parts of Vidarbha and western Maharashtra, Khadse belongs to the Leva Patil community, which has strong foci in northern Maharashtra.
Pankaja, who was the minister of rural development in the Fadnavis government, faced a surprising defeat for Parli en Beed against his cousin and leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (PCN) Dhananjay Munde, who is the Minister of Social Justice in the Uddhav Thackeray government. coalition.
His loyalists allege that Pankaja’s defeat at his father’s fortress was an inside job. That Fadnavis has been friends with Dhananjay since his days at BJP has not helped.
Khadse, who never did any of his displeasure at being outdone by his junior to become prime minister, resigned as revenue minister after a sudden wave of controversy and media reports.
He was denied a nomination for his traditional Muktainagar seat in Jalgaon. Her daughter Rohini Khadse-Khewalkar, who was nominated in her place, lost by a narrow margin to a Shiv Sena rebel, who according to Khadse’s loyalists, was aided by BJP elements.
Khadse disagreed with the former minister of water resources and the loyal Fadnavis Girish Mahajan, who also hails from Jalgaon.
Bavankule, the Fadnavis state energy and excise minister, was denied a new designation for his Kamthi constituency in Nagpur, something the BJP leaders admit cost them the votes of their powerful Teli community, largely from Vidarbha.
Significantly, both Pankaja and Khadse had threatened to display the banner of the revolt against the BJP and Fadnavis last year. Pankaja had announced a state-wide yatra, and also resigned from the BJP central committee, while Khadse had indicated that he would leave the party sooner or later. But, they withdrew at the last moment.
Friday’s nominations have left Fadnavis loyalists gloating. They claim that these developments show that their leader is still making decisions in the party’s Maharashtra unit, and remains in the good books of the almighty central leadership of the BJP.
But, this is contested by those of the rival field. “Fadnavis is ruling the chicken coop because those who oppose him have aligned themselves with party discipline and chose not to approach the central leadership with their complaints. The high command, in turn, feels that things are wrong, despite the fact that our social and political base has been eroding in recent months, “said one leader.
So going back to the analogy, will the BJP manage to cook their “bhakri” well? Or will it fall apart? Wait and see, say the old hands of BJP.
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