The government has been installed in grand fashion. CM Devendra Fadnavis took over the reins for the third time in 10 years. His two deputies, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, complete the top layer, but being the CM, Fadnavis enjoys supreme powers. Shinde did have absolute powers when he was the CM, but using them the way he desired was subject to the big brother BJP’s approval. The Fadnavis chapter will be different. With no conditions applied, it would be interesting to see how freely and astutely Fadnavis drives his agenda for the next five years, and also placates the allies, one of which is very touchy.

Fadnavis has scaled the peak where he will exercise himself in true and powerful form by using his experience of five years as the CM. Unlike the first stint’s formative months, he doesn’t need to be in learning mode. Then, he was a fresher who learnt quickly on the job and made a mark in five long years to be able to win the next elections with a majority. As a deputy CM in the past two years, he has identified the areas where a complete overhauling is required. He needs team players—bureaucrats and ministers—who would understand his vision and sustain his endless expectations of hard work, show the discipline and patience needed to play a Test match. In the past ten years, of which seven and a half were in power, Fadnavis has observed the efficient and lazy, clean and corrupt, the admirers of a real and fake kind, smart and dull, ambitious and meek. Cherry-picking should be easier for him now. Fadnavis was the first CM to have put a team of advisors and officers on special duty, all private individuals, together. Some of them continued to work with him when he was the Opposition leader and Dy CM, and are already part of the new CMO. He had introduced the concept of a ‘war room’ to monitor projects and schemes from the CMO. Shinde used it. Fadnavis has proposed to update it.