Meet Devendra Fadnavis: The Mr Clean of Maharashtra politics

MUMBAI: A few years ago, in the villages of Vidarbha, the effect of load-shedding was so much that farmers would get electricity only for a few hours at night when they would venture to their fields, risking more than anything, attacks by snakes and foxes.
When the situation worsened, a young MLA started gatecrashing the public hearings of Maharashtra State Electricity Board with his group of protestors, demanding an answer. "Äll that you say about Devendra Fadnavis - soft spoken and polite was only for the city. In the field, he is like a true ABVP activist," says an old resident of Nagpur. Forty four-year-old Fadnavis, for sure has come a long way in politics in a short span. A deshast brahmin from Chandrapur in Vidarbha, Devendra’s aunt, Shobha Fadnavis, was a former minister and represented the Mul constituency for a long time. At Dharampeth in Nagpur, his family, comprising his wife Amruta, mother Sarita and daughter Divija, lives in a modest two-storeyed house that also houses his office. Right opposite his house is a playground named after his father Gangadharrao, a prominent RSS leader who later became a Jan Sangh member in the state legislative council. As a child Devendra is said to have refused to go to a certain Ïndira Convent because it had the name of a leader who had jailed his father during the Emergency.

Devendra lost his father when he was 17. Devendra’s political career started in the early nineties, when he joined the BJP as a ward president of its youth wing. He became the youngest corporator of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation at the age of 21 and the second youngest elected mayor in 1997, at the age of 27. Fadnavis is said to have brought to the limelight by Gopinath Munde who saw him as a promising leader.

He replaced Nitin Gadkari’s aide, Sudhir Munganthiwar as the BJP State president. Despite rumours of disagreements between him and Gadkari, Fadnavis is said to share a good equation with the union minister, but is seen to have been chosen to hold the post by PM Modi. Critics are however ambiguous about Devendra’s appointment as the CM.

"He has been an effective MLA and he is not known to belong to any faction in the party. But beyond that he has no government experience. And his government doesn’t have majority in the house which will be a restraining factor too," said Suhas Palshikar, political analyst. "Being a Brahmin with no community support, he will have to depend a lot on the national leaders who are running the party which is not a good sign," Palshikar added.

That, however doesn’t bother his old associates recall that most often, leaders such as Ajit Pawar and RR Patil would sit back in the legislature to hear Devendra dissect the budget.

"Even leaders such as Vilasrao Deskhmukh would stop by and congratulate him for his Assembly speeches," BJP member Atul Shah said. Fadnavis is also famous for helping his colleagues write fool-proof speeches by giving them with well researched data. A voracious reader of books on energy, taxes and economics, Fadnavis is known to enjoy a subway sandwich as much as modak or puranpoli. He is a technology addict, and always carries around an iPhone and iPad. He loves old Hindi songs and dialogues from Hindi movies.