Devendra Fadnavis’s offer to resign as Deputy CM, and the wheels within wheels

Hours after Maharashtra BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis offered to resign as Deputy Chief Minister over the party’s poor performance in the state, he received a call from Union Home Minister Amit Shah, assuring a hearing to him regarding his concerns.

A day later, top RSS leaders met Fadnavis at his residence in Nagpur for a two-hour-long meeting. An RSS leader said they discussed the political scenario and the challenges facing the BJP.

The back-to-back interventions by Shah and the RSS indicate the nervousness within the BJP over the fall in its tally from 23 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra to nine, at a time when Assembly elections are round the corner. Central to the party’s plans is Fadnavis, who was expected to deliver in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls for the BJP as well as carry along its partners Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde and NCP of Ajit Pawar; the latter too also had a disappointing result, with the Shinde Sena winning seven out of 15 seats, and the Ajit NCP one out of four.

This prompted Fadnavis’s announcement – taking even his close aides by surprise – that he would like to step down as Deputy CM and take on more organisational responsibilities to “strengthen the BJP” ahead of the Assembly polls.

Expressing disappointment over the results, he said: “Our vote share is only marginally lower – 26.17% compared to 27.84% in 2019, but our seats plunged.”

Fadnavis’s resignation offer is being read as preemptive, in expectation of the post-defeat heat on him. Sources close to him point out that the BJP’s whole strategy, in fact, failed as, focused on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it failed to notice the issues at play such as caste, farmer anger and Dalit unrest. Others say that rather than the state unit, the campaign was