BJP’s state leadership discusses blueprint for assembly polls

Maharashtra BJP holds strategy meeting for state assembly elections, focusing on campaign planning and addressing past election issues.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a marathon meeting on Friday night to discuss strategy for the upcoming state assembly elections. During the five-hour-long meeting held at deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s official residence at Malabar Hill, senior BJP leaders, including the core committee members, deliberated upon the blueprint the party has chalked out for the polls, including how to plan the campaign.

HT Image

Elections to the 288-member state assembly are likely to be held in October.

The BJP, which faced a debacle in the Lok Sabha polls by dropping from 23 seats to nine has identified the factors responsible for its poor show.

The meeting was attended by party leaders Vinod Tawde, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Piyush Goyal, Ashish Shelar, Pankaja Munde, Raosaheb Danve and other leaders. The party leadership, which has decided to project Maratha and OBC leaders region-wise as a collective leadership strategy, has decided to roll up their sleeves and better the performance. “The false narrative about the change in the Constitution, and scrapping of the reservation cost us dear in the Lok Sabha elections. The complacency among the workers and local-level leaders was another major factor responsible for the debacle. The unrest among Marathas and OBCs over the reservation issue cost us dear. We have already started addressing these issues. The OBCs are being given confidence that the party is backing them to ensure that the existing reservation was not touched. The decision of appointing party loyalists as region-wise in-charge will help us in sending out the message that original party workers are valued in the fold,” said a party leader privy to the developments.

“The blueprint for assembly is shaping up and there will be more such meetings over the next few weeks. Rather than discussing the reasons behind the defeat the focus is on the way forward as the leaders are well-versed with the reasons. The leaders are convinced that most of the factors like ‘change in the Constitution’ would not persist in the assembly polls, and a few corrective steps would help the party in retaining its existing tally,” the leader said.

Another leader said that they did not discuss the sharing of seats with their allies, they have decided to improve the coordination with them. “The leaders however discussed the forthcoming legislative council polls and the nominations from the party,” he added.