Maharashtra polls: Parties discuss front runners for CM

Taking cue from Modi, leaders to make development their poll plank

Political parties in Maharashtra are discussing frontrunners for chief minister after elections to the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly slated for September-October.

The list includes the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)’s Other Backward Caste face and newly appointed Union minister for rural development, Gopinath Munde, the party's Brahmin youth leader Devendra Fadnavis, Nationalist Congress Party leader and the state’s deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and his estranged cousin and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray.

They have one thing in common. Each is taking a cue from Narendra Modi’s projection of himself as prime minister and his gamble for change. Besides, these leaders believe the development plank will come handy.

The Congress, yet to recover from a humiliating defeat countrywide as well as in Maharashtra, is mum on the issue. The list of the party’s aspirants for chief minister includes Industries Minister Narayan Rane, Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam, Cooperation Minister Harshvardhan Patil, Agriculture Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat. However, neither the party nor these leaders are inclined to project anyone in the run-up to the Assembly elections.

Munde, who has never hidden his ambition of becoming chief minister, led the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections in which the party won 23 of the 24 seats it contested in the state. The leader of the opposition in the state’s Legislative Council Vinod Tawde has set at rest speculation over who will lead the party in the coming Assembly elections by announcing Munde's name. He also went on to clarify that the party's core committee would finalise the name of chief ministerial candidate after the elections.

However, a section of the state BJP is bent on the projection of Fadnavis, who is young, dynamic and a good orator. Moreover, he is acceptable to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and various groups within the BJP as a compromise candidate.

As far as Ajit Pawar is concerned, he is still sulking over NCP’s decision to give the chief minister's post to alliance partner Congress, despite winning more seats in the 2004 assembly elections. A large number of party legislators are running a campaign for Ajit Pawar’s elevation to the chief minister's post. After the party's poor showing in the last general elections, Ajit Pawar has declared that he will certainly like to become Maharashtra’s chief minister, a post held by his uncle and party supremo Sharad Pawar four times. However, party insiders argue that Ajit Pawar will have to speak less and reach out to various groups within the party for the NCP to regain lost ground.

In case of the Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray declared on Thursday that Shiv Sainiks were keen that he became chief minister. Uddhav Thackeray, who became party president after the death of Sena founder Bal Thackeray in November 2012, has slowly and steadily asserted his position within the party.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, whose candidates lost their deposits in the latest general election, has said in the past that he is eyeing the chief minister’s post. Some of the party’s legislators have proposed that Raj Thackeray be projected on the lines of Modi as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s chief ministerial candidate. However, Raj Thackeray heads a weak party organisation and four months may be too short to bring in the needed changes.