Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s blue-eyed boy and former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has not only proved to be a strong opposition in Maharashtra but swiftly headed various campaigns campaigns for the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in the country.
Fadnavis, who celebrates his birthday today, July 22, Fadnavis not only silenced his competitors within the party but checkmated traditional political rivals Congress and NCP. Although Shiv Sena, after initial refusal, joined the government, it had no voice as Fadnavis was the boss and he had his say in government functioning.
Fadnavis served as the 18th Chief Minister of Maharashtra (CM), in office from 31 October 2014 to 8 November 2019. He was the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Fadnavis, born to Gangadhar Fadnavis, served as a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council from Nagpur. His mother, Sarita Fadnavis, who is a descendant of the Kaloti family of Amravati, was the former director of the Vidarbha Housing Credit Society.
Fadnavis received his initial schooling from Indira Convent, named after then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. During the Emergency, Fadnavis' father, being a member of the Jan Sangh, was incarcerated for participating in anti-government protests. Fadnavis subsequently refused to continue his schooling at Indira Convent as he did not want to attend a school named after the Prime Minister he held responsible for jailing his father. He was then transferred to the Saraswati Vidyalaya school, Nagpur, where he received most of his schooling. After completing ten years of schooling, Fadnavis attended Dharampeth Junior College for his higher secondary. After completing his 12th standard, he enrolled at Government Law College, Nagpur for a five-year integrated law degree and graduated in 1992.
Fadnavis also has a post-graduate degree in Business Management and a diploma in Methods and Techniques of Project Management from DSE (German Foundation for International Development), Berlin.
Fadnavis began his political career in the mid-nineties. Since that time he served in multiple leadership roles for both his political party and as an elected representative. As a college student, Fadnavis was an active member of the BJP affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). He won his first municipal election from Ram Nagar ward in the year 1992 at the age of 22 and became a corporator. 5 years later, in 1997, Fadnavis at 27 became the youngest mayor of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation and became the second youngest mayor in the history of India.
After the 2014 assembly elections, Fadnavis was elected the legislative party leader by the BJP MLAs in the presence of the party's central observers, Union Home minister Rajnath Singh and the party's National Chief Jagat Prakash Nadda. As the leader of the largest party in the assembly, Fadnavis was appointed as the chief minister of Maharashtra on 31 October 2014. His government won a confidence motion by voice vote on 12 November 2014 allowing it to govern.
In 2015, then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis became the first Indian to be selected for an Honorary Doctorate by Osaka City University, Japan. The 120-year-old university then had so far conferred its supreme honorary degree on only 10 distinguished persons in the world. The university said Fadnavis was chosen for the honour for his initiative taken through major reforms for socio-economic development in Maharashtra, also on 10 September 2015 Fadnavis unveiled a Statue of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar - The architect of Indian Constitution and the founding father of the Republic of India. - at the Koyasan University in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan.
In June 2018, while serving a term as Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Fadnavis received the Outstanding Leadership in Development Award by Georgetown University, USA which he dedicated to the people of Maharashtra.
In a state whose politics is dominated by the Marathas, who comprise one-third of the state’s population, the CM’s post went to Fadnavis, a Brahmin, after the BJP emerged as the single largest party but fell short of the 144-majority mark in the 2014 Assembly elections (the Sena and BJP had fought the polls separately).
The second Brahmin to become CM after Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena, Fadnavis’s elevation created a flutter in Maharashtra’s politics. Not surprisingly, Fadnavis plays down the importance of caste, claiming, for instance, that Maharashtra had “moved beyond” such criteria. Fadnavis has deep family roots in the state’s politics and a connection with the RSS going back to his school days.
Devendra Fadnavis has sought to project himself as a development-oriented chief minister, but his record has been mixed on this count. He has pushed ahead with metro projects in Mumbai and other cities, even if it means that his administration has got into spats like the one with environmental activists and residents of Mumbai’s Aarey forest area.
He has also been able to dilute protest movements such as the Maratha quota agitation and the farmers’ stir before they took radical political overtones, thus not giving much opportunity to the likes of Maratha strongman and NCP leader Sharad Pawar to capitalise on the negative sentiment.
He has attempted to buttress his anti-corruption credentials by dropping some controversial ministers from his Cabinet. Fadnavis has gained clout in five years, with both the Amit Shah-Narendra Modi duo and the RSS considering him to be trustworthy.
