Fresh from their stupendous performance in the Lok Sabha polls which saw them win 41 out of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, the ruling BJP and its ally Shiv Sena will take out a “Rath Yatra” in August this year to “recapture” power in the State by ‘winning more than 220 out of 228 Assembly seats’.
To be led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the “Rath Yatra” to be taken out in the run-up months to the October 2019 Assembly polls will have twin poll planks “Phir ek bar Shivshahi Sarkar” (Saffron alliance government once again) and “Ab ki baar 220 ke par”. (We’ll cross 220 seat mark this time).
Making an announcement to this effect after his party held a state executive meeting here, senior BJP leader and State Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil said: “We (BJP and Shiv Sena) are preparing to contest all the 288 seats in the State Assembly polls. The chief minister will lead the yatra”.
Patil indicated that the BJP’s national leadership would appoint a new state party president in place of Raosaheb Danve-Patil who was elected to Lok Sabha from Jalna constituency for the fifth consecutive time in May this year. He was sworn in as Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the Union Government on May 30.
Earlier in the day, the BJP leaders held a state executive meeting on Saturday. In series tweets put out after the meeting, Fadnavis said: “We are here for politics of performance! Decisiveness is our strength, we are not for populist measures, but working hard on actual delivery system. And only by this we are able to gain confidence of people. We need to move forward with this direction and with more sustained efforts”.
“We also discussed at length future road map & appealed to prepare for next Maharashtra Assembly elections and other organisational programs,” the chief minister tweeted.
It may be recalled that on June 2, Chandrakant Patil said had gone to town saying that the BJP and ShivSena would contest 135 seats each in the State Assembly polls, setting aside the remaining 18 seats for our allies.
However, there is no unanimity between the BJP and Shiv Sena over the chief minister’s post. This time around, the Shiv Sena has also staked claim for the chief minister’s post.
So much so that Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray slammed the BJP leaders for claiming that the next chief minister of Maharashtra will be from the BJP.
Alluding to claims made by BJP leaders, including Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Minister Girish Mahajan and party’s observer for Maharashtra Saroj Pande, made at the State party’s executive meeting earlier in the day, Uddhav said: “A decision has already been taken jointly BJP’s national president Amit Shah, Fadnavis and I. I would like to tell all those in the BJP not to speak on this issue henceforth”.