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From Nagpur mayor to Maharashtra chief minister, 44-year-old Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis has come a long way. A law graduate from Nagpur University, Fadnavis’ entry into politics was not by accident. It was a conscious decision as he wanted to continue his father’s work, a former member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council.
His father, the late Gangadharrao, a leader of the Jana Sangh, had groomed Union minister Nitin Gadkari in his youth. When Fadnavis lost his father at the age of 17, it was Gadkari who stepped in as guide.
Fadnavis’ well-wishers and friends say his politics is not about confrontation but one of inclusive development. He is a meticulous planner and stickler for details. This helped Fadnavis access government files and fire salvoes against the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government on a number of scams and corruption cases.
Fadnavis was at a forefront of launching multi-pronged attacks on the Congress-NCP government over the multi-crore irrigation scam, deteriorating finances, fodder scam, and alleged irregularities in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank, which is currently under the administrator’s rule since May 2011. His scathing attack put the Congress-NCP government on the defensive. He was also was vocal in flagging the rising regional imbalance and the alleged diversion of funds to the cooperative-rich western Maharashtra by the previous government. He also highlighted the mismatch between demand and supply of power in Vidarbha, despite producing 51 per cent of the electricity in the state.
During an election rally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed Fadnavis “an asset” for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and praised him for exposing a series of scams in the state. He was awarded the ‘best legislator’ title for his oratory skills and his passion to take up a number issues that have larger public interest.
Fadnavis entered politics as a ward convenor of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1989. A year later, he was appointed the office bearer of the party in the Nagpur (west) division. In two years, he rose to claim the president’s post of the party’s Nagpur city division. He has also served as the president of Yuva Morcha, and has successfully leveraged his close association with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the BJP.
In 1992, he was elected to the Nagpur civic body at the age of 21 and was re-elected for a second term in 1997. As the mayor of Nagpur, Fadnavis was the second youngest mayor elected in India in 1997. Since 1999, he has been elected the member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, representing Nagpur. In 2013, he was appointed the state unit chief of the BJP.
As the new chief minister of Maharashtra, Fadnavis has his task cut out. Among the challenges that he will have to tackle are retaining the state's pre-eminence as an investment destination, converting the state’s revenue-deficit budget to a revenue-surplus one, increasing agriculture growth to double digit, and removing backlog and infrastructure bottlenecks.
Fadnavis creates history, supporters rejoice
