With a lot of complications due to the breakaway factions of two important constituents — NCP and Shiv Sena — in Maharashtra, the Central leadership of BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has personally started taking stock of the situation. The State is to go to Assembly elections soon.
A day after Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar demanded nearly 90 seats for the NCP faction led by him during his meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah, the PM on Thursday met MPs of NDA allies in Maharashtra and discussed the political situation ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls in the state. Among those whom the Prime Minister met included Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, and others.
The BJP won just nine of the 28 seats it contested in the Lok Sabha polls, down from 23 it won in 2019. Besides the loss of Lok Sabha seats, BJP’s vote percentage decline in the State this elections has caused a huge worry. In 2024, BJP got 27.84 per cent votes which has been reduced to 26.1 per cent this time.
Sources said a section of the BJP leadership is in fix over the being party to Ajit Pawar led NCP who besides pressing for maximum number of seats for forthcoming assembly polls has been demanding a cabinet berth in the Union Council of Ministers. The party opted out from the Council of Ministers when it was formed by Modi who took over as PM in his third tenure last month.
Sources said the Prime Minister took feedback from all the MPs regarding the upcoming assembly elections in the meeting. During the conversation, the PM also gave a mantra to all the MPs on how to win the elections by keeping a close watch on activities at booth level. The Prime Minister asked the MPs to be active from the booth to the ground and work for the people. He told the MPs that everyone should focus on how to reach as many people as possible.
During the meeting, Modi also asked the newly elected MPs from Maharashtra about their experience so far. “Meeting was scheduled soon after the canards were spread by the Opposition ranks that Maharashtra has been completely ignored in the Budget announced this week. PM personally desired to set aside apprehensions and shared that all representatives of the Maharashtra coalition should reach out to the people and explain how several projects and many funds have been allocated to the State,” sources said after the meeting that transpired between the PM and MPs in the Parliament.
During his meeting with Amit Shah, Pawar insisted on seat distribution at the earliest and asked to avoid lingering around till the last minute like the Lok Sabha polls. After his meeting with Amit Shah, Ajit Pawar also met deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and other senior BJP leaders in the national capital. According to sources, Pawar is likely to make another visit on July 28. The Ajit Pawar-Amit Shah meeting comes he was blamed for NCP’s alliance with the BJP for the latter’s loss in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections.
The Ajit Pawar-led NCP won just one seat, Raigad, while the Sharad Pawar led NCP bagged eight. On the other hand the Shiv Sena faction of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is determined to contest 100 seats while the BJP has set a target of 160 to 170 seats of the total of 288 Vidhan Sabha.
In the recent past, some BJP leaders and the RSS have blamed the inclusion of Ajit Pawar and his NCP in the Mahayuti as one of the reasons for the ruling alliance’s poor show in the Lok Sabha polls. The last assembly polls saw the undivided NCP win 54 seats.
