Time to focus on governance

The election of Devendra Fadnavis as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislative party clears the decks for the 54-year-old to return as the chief minister of Maharashtra on the back of a historic mandate that saw the Mahayuti, the three-party coalition headed by the BJP, win a landslide victory in the recently concluded assembly elections. Fadnavis is now set to take oath as chief minister for a third time on Thursday, alongside possibly Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar as deputy CMs, in a function that will not only inaugurate the second Mahayuti government but also bring the curtain down on an extraordinarily chaotic term that saw the splitting of two regional outfits trigger unprecedented political machinations across the board.

Over the last few years, India’s richest state has been in the throes of extreme political volatility – first by the splitting of the Shiv Sena, then by an almost identical breach in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and then by two elections (the Lok Sabha polls this summer and the assembly elections in November) — that saw at least six major mainstream outfits and 20 smaller ones duke it out. For the ordinary citizen, it has been a tiring stream of bitter political diatribes, parties fighting over names, symbols and legacies, blaming each other for orchestrating defections, and claiming the moral high ground. Though some major projects were inaugurated during this time, such as the completion of the Atal Setu and the Samruddhi Mahamarg from Mumbai to Nagpur, a major casualty of this imbroglio was everyday governance and civic infrastructure as party leaders squabbled with each other and local body elections were postponed. Every government decision created a political furore and major investments and projects were lost to other states. The sorry state of infrastructure in India’s financial capital and the flurry of citizen complaints during the monsoon stood testament to this stalemate.

It is now time to turn the page. The assembly elections have delivered a resounding mandate for stability and the citizens of Maharashtra have voted to end lingering quarrels about the true heir of political legacies with Shinde and Ajit Pawar decisively overshadowing Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar respectively. This should be a moment to put the focus back on good governance and pushing politics to the backburner. India’s richest state needs to move past the chaos of party politics and work on fixing civic woes and improving the lives of the common citizen. Similarly, Mumbai needs to address its crumbling infrastructure and urban poverty with holistic and long-term interventions. The swearing-in ceremony on Thursday offers an opportunity to effect this change. Maharashtra deserves nothing less.

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