In January 2012, the Central Pollution Control Board had drawn up plans to incinerate in Maharashtra, toxic waste from Union Carbide's Bhopal plant. They were considering either to dispose of the waste at the DRDO facility in Nagpur or the hazardous waste facility at Taloja, near Mumbai.
The decision led to a massive uproar in the Maharashtra Assembly. Hours of raucous discussion followed, but when MLA Devendra Fadnavis started to speak against the incineration of the waste in Maharashtra, there was absolute silence on the floor of the house.
His arguments were sound, backed by insights and built on solid logic and facts. After he finished his long speech, he was soundly complimented by several ruling party members.
Fadnavis has repeated this performance on several other occasions in the Maharashtra Assembly.
The 44-year old Fadnavis, an author of five books, has worked closely with the party’s youth wing since his college days. He became a councillor in Nagpur municipality in 1992, and by 1997, had become the youngest mayor of the city. With that he stared his pubic life, and has managed to become MLA four times from Nagpur.
Fadnavis, a Brahmin, has years of field work experience as an RSS volunteer. His father, Gangadharrao Gadgil, was a senior Jan Sangh leader, and later a BJP Member of Legislative Council (MLC). His aunt, Shobha Fadnavis, was a Cabinet Minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government.
His pedigree, RSS affiliations and Nagpur roots have all worked in his favour, and would soon help him become the Chief Executive of the country’s most prosperous and industrially advanced State.