There has been no discussion about who will be the chief ministerial candidate of the ruling ‘Mahayuti’ coalition in the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly election, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said on June 19.
He added that the party’s central leadership and alliance partners would take a decision on this, while affirming that Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis continues to be the BJP’s leader in the State.
On his return to Nagpur after attending the BJP’s core committee meeting in Delhi on June 18, Mr. Bawankule said that the party leadership had discussed the reasons for the below-par performance of the Mahayuti coalition, comprising the BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and the Nationalist Congress Party, led by Ajit Pawar. “We also analysed why the coalition’s vote share lagged by 0.3% behind the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA),” he said.
Poor performance
On multiple occasions before the Lok Sabha election, Mr. Fadnavis had claimed that Mr. Shinde would remain the face of their alliance during both the parliamentary and Assembly polls in the State. In the Lok Sabha election, however, the BJP managed to win only nine of the 28 seats it contested. The Mahayuti alliance as a whole secured only 17 seats out of 48 from the State, while the Opposition MVA won 30 seats, with an additional seat going to a rebel Congress candidate, Vishal Patil from Sangli, who later extended his support to the Congress itself. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP alone had won 23 seats in the western State.
When asked about the possibility of Mr. Fadnavis becoming the alliance’s CM candidate, the BJP State chief said that the alliance’s focus is on the development of the State, unlike the MVA, which has multiple CM aspirants. The decision about the CM face, he said, would be made by the central leadership and the party’s Maharashtra in-charges Bhupendra Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw, along with Mahayuti leaders Mr. Shinde and Mr. Ajit Pawar.
The BJP will take out a ‘Dhanyawad Yatra’ across the State to thank the voters, Mr. Bawankule added.
Published - June 19, 2024 08:51 pm IST
