Exulting after the BJP’s electoral triumph in four States including Goa, former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, the BJP’s Goa election in-charge, asserted that his party would form the government in Maharashtra after the 2024 Assembly election with full majority.
Speaking in Mumbai where he was welcomed by jubilant party workers near the party’s Nariman Point office following the BJP’s triumph in Goa, Mr. Fadnavis said the party’s next target was to rid the Shiv Sena-controlled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of corruption.
“We want to rescue the civic body from the clutches of corruption. The BJP is not against any party [read Sena] per se, but against corruption,” said Mr. Fadnavis.
In a bid to checkmate the Sena, the BJP has been eyeing the cash-rich BMC, which is the Sena’s power and resource base in Maharashtra and has been controlled by the Uddhav Thackeray-led party for more than two decades.
Remarking that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘magic’ had shone through in the Assembly election results, Mr Fadnavis said whether it was the Covid-19 pandemic or any other crisis, Mr. Modi had managed to create a trust among the country’s electorate that saw it being translated into votes.
The BJP’s long-standing alliance with the Sena unravelled after the two saffron parties bickered over the Chief Minister’s post following the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election. Consequently the Sena formed an alliance with the ideologically opposed NCP and the Congress to keep the BJP out of power despite the latter emerging as the single-largest party with 105 seats.
Taking potshots at the Congress’ performance in Goa, Mr. Fadnavis said the party thought it would win and had already sought an appointment with the Governor of Goa (P.S. Shreedharan Pillai).
“But such were the results [the Congress managed only 11 seats to the BJP’s 20] that no one from the Congress side turned up to stake claim to form the government,” mocked Mr. Fadnavis.
Targeting the Sena, Mr. Fadnavis said the Uddhav Thackeray-led party was a non-entity in the Goa electoral contest. “The Sena was loudly boasting that its fight was with the BJP… in reality, they were competing with the ‘none of the above’ [NOTA] votes. Even with its combined alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Sena-NCP’s vote share is barely a little over the NOTA votes,” Mr. Fadnavis said.
The NCP-Sena alliance secured a combined vote share of 1.32% of which the Sena’s share was a dismal 0.18% while the NOTA vote figure stood at 1.12%.
The Sena was eager to form an alliance with the Goa Congress to take on the BJP only to be rebuffed by the latter. Despite Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s professions of his party being in the reckoning in Goa, the Sena has scant presence with its candidates performing even more dismally this time than in the 2017 Assembly election.
