Fadnavis: The godfather of Gadchiroli

Gadchiroli, which abuts Chhattisgarh and Telangana, is the only place in Maharashtra where Naxalites were said to have a stronghold. While Naxalite activities are on the wane, the people remain impoverished.

In the last week of the 2024, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that he was keen to continue as ‘guardian minister’ of Gadchiroli. Traditionally, a chief minister does not assume this role being, as it were, the guardian of the entire state; but Fadnavis would rather have Gadchiroli over any other district. Why?

Carved out of Vidarbha region in 1982, Gadchiroli is rich in largely unexplored natural resources, with total reserves of 178.61 million tonnes (MT) of iron ore, 172 MT of limestone and other minerals, as per the Maharashtra government directorate of geology and mining.

With Fadnavis claiming that Gadchiroli will be ‘naxalite-free’ in the next three years, a race to tap this bounty is likely to begin soon. That could be one reason.

As Eknath Shinde’s deputy, Fadnavis was the guardian minister of Gadchiroli for the last three years. That could be another reason.

A third reason could be the large inflow of unaudited, unaccounted public funds to ‘counter naxalite activities—a lucrative lure for the security establishment. People suspect that the ‘surrender of Naxalites’ is engineered more often than not, and the ‘rewards’ and ‘funds for rehabilitation’ usurped.

The most likely motivation is a push for industries, however.

In 2007, Lloyds Metal and Energy Limited was granted a 50-year lease to mine iron ore in the Wooria hills of Surjagargh, where the reserves are estimated to be much higher than the 1970 figures of 73.6 MT.

In July 2024, Maharashtra’s then deputy chief ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit ‘Dada’ Pawar laid the foundation stone of a steel plant in Surjagarh village of Etapalli taluka in Gadchiroli. A steel city may well be what the government is after, despite resistance from locals.

Fadnavis has also announced that Gadchiroli and Gondia will be connected via the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway.

The government claims that since 2021, 85 Naxalites were killed,109 arrested and 37 surrendered. The last time an IED blast took the lives of security personnel was in 2019, when 15 jawans were killed in the Kurkheda area. Fadnavis also claims that 1,500 youths from Gadchiroli, of whom 150 had Naxalite links, have now joined the police force. We do not know how reassuring this is to local citizens.

Industries minister Uday Samant announced that the state government is planning to acquire 5,000 hectares of land for industrial development in Gadchiroli district for Ambuja Cement, JSW and other companies to set up units here.

Companies like Lloyds Metals and Varad Ferro are apparently going to invest as much as Rs 22,000 crore. 

An Udyog Bhavan is also being planned.

With all this hectic activity in the works, who better to guard the interests of all those lining up for a piece of the Gadchiroli pie... than the chief minister himself?