BJP accuses oppn of spreading ‘fake narrative’ in LS polls; Cong hits out

Maharashtra BJP blames Opposition for decline in seats, plans Ghar Chalo Abhiyan to counter 'fake narrative' on Constitution amendment.

Mumbai: After falling from 23 seats to nine in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is putting the blame for its decline on the Opposition parties for setting a ‘fake narrative’ on amending the Constitution, which resulted in the deviation of the scheduled caste and Muslim votes in the Lok Sabha election.

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Maharashtra BJP has announced to undertake Ghar Chalo Abhiyan to rebut the scrapping of the constitution narrative and said it will expose Congress on its Mahalaxmi scheme announced in its manifesto.

The Maharashtra unit of BJP held a review meeting of its state executive attended by MPs, MLA, ministers, and office bearers including district presidents and national general secretary Vinod Tawde at its Mumbai office. While introspecting the loss of seats in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, BJP leaders have blamed the campaign by Congress and other opposition parties on the BJP’s plan of scrapping the constitution and shutting down the schemes meant for the tribals and backward classes. The party leadership announced the outreach program Ghar Chalo Abhiyan by appointing senior leaders per constituency.

The party leadership is also of the opinion that barring a few seats in Marathwada, the Maratha agitation has not impacted their poll prospects. “The Congress and their alliance set a false narrative that the Modi government will change the constitution if elected to power and shut down the schemes meant for the backward classes. Women were assured to give ₹8,500 per month if elected to power. This helped them to win votes of these classes and it led to our loss. Our outreach drive is aimed at weeding out this misconception among our voters. We are confident that we will win the Assembly polls by bringing back our voters that deviated owing to the false narrative,” said Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Maharashtra BJP chief, while addressing the media.

Bawankule said that the party lost ten seats in the vote margin of less than 50,000 and little effort of adding just 10 more votes per polling booth would help them win a simple majority in the Assembly.

Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis addressed the state executive and said that the party’s votes were intact and an increase in the vote share by 1% would help the BJP to retain power.

BJP also held a meeting of its Maratha MLAs and apprised them about the steps taken by the state government for the reservation of Maratha and their welfare schemes. “The MLAs have been directed to take them to the Maratha community to subside their anger against the BJP and government,” said a leader.

Responding to BJP’s allegations, Maharashtra Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said, “The BJP could not achieve its ‘mission 45’ in the Lok Sabha polls and they sensed that they will perform even worse in the assembly polls. Such remarks against us is an attempt to boost the morale of the party workers. People are not going to fall prey to such fake perceptions. The people of Maharashtra have spoken and they are determined to pull down the government formed by breaking parties.”