By securing the inclusion of Bombay City within Maharashtra without grumble or grouse and by winning the confidence of the mercantile community and the commercial interests of Bombay, Shri Chavan has secured to the new State of Maharashtra an invaluable springboard for the dissemination of industrial and commercial prosperity in its undeveloped and neglected hinter land. He has tackled the sore issue of Vidarbha equally with courage, imagination and understanding. By his sincerity, patience and genuine goodwill he has brought Vidarbha opinion round to a willing acceptance of Samyukta Maharashtra.
By bringing about the creation of two separate States of Maharashtra and Gujarat, in an atmosphere of mutual agreement, Shri Chavan has helped settle a sore outstanding issue and neutralised some festering poisons of the body politic of India in this part of the country. Maharashtra has ceased to be a problem State for the Indian National Congress and is now one of the stablest and strongest units of the Indian Union.
While these achievements are outstanding, Shri Chavan’s significance in political life lies principally in the promise that he holds for the future. He represents the new leadership in Congress politics. The age of the giants has ended as indeed it had to. The great legendary giants of the struggle for independence, Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel, Maulana Azad, have all departed the scene. The last of the giants, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, is fortunately still with us but obviously the country has to seek a new leadership in its youth for carrying the torch. It is the promise that Shri Yeshwantrao Chavan holds as a prominent member of such a new leadership that is of significance from the point of view of contemporary political life. The number of such leaders thrown up from the younger elements has been painfully inadequate hithertofore. It is inevitable therefore that a good part of the burden of the new leadership would fall on Shri Chavan's shoulders.
This new leadership is youthful and realistic. It is not content merely with slogan-shouting but wants the slogans to be translated into hard reality. It is not seated on the pedestal in the public mind as the old giants of the Independence struggle; it can win its way only on its merits. This new leadership is inevitably inclined towards the political left. At the same time it shuns violence and the doctrines of class-hatred and would build up a new India without loss or detriment of the traditional cultural values of this country.
