The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has appointed veteran candidate Bhupender Yadav as its in-charge for the Maharashtra Assembly elections. The Union Minister will be assisted by his Cabinet colleague Ashwini Vaishnav. The BJP had also contested the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections under Yadav, who was its then general secretary.
His return in the same capacity means the party is looking for someone who knows state politics well and can work better with the state leadership with which he is already aligned. The state political situation has become even more complicated for the BJP after the NDA’s low vote share in the state assembly elections.
The MVA won the most seats, followed by the Indian National Congress with 13. The BJP, the party with the largest number of seats in 2019, only managed to win a single-digit number of seats. The BJP’s other two coalition partners did not perform as expected.
Concerned top BJP leaders have begun taking corrective steps and planning ahead of the elections due in October. The deployment of officers is one of the measures taken ahead of a big test in key states like Maharashtra, where the two three-party alliances will face off against each other.
On the other hand, the ruling coalition led by the BJP consists of the Shiv Sena (Shinde) and the Indian National Congress (Ajit Pawar), while the other consists of the Indian National Congress, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Indian National Congress (Sharad Pawar).
Yadav is currently the Union Minister for Environment, Forests, Climate Change and Employment. Vaishnav, a former IAS officer, heads Railways and two other important ministries. Their appointments by President JP Nadda came at the same time as naming ministers in-charge for the states of Jharkhand, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, which go to polls later this year. In 2019, these appointments were made in August but this year they were brought forward, signalling preparations are underway.
Yadav had worked closely with then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in 2019. The undivided Shiv Sena partnered with the BJP and the two parties jointly won a majority to form the government. However, things changed after the election results. As the Sena was reluctant to form the government, the BJP made a pact with the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar, who was sworn in as Chief Minister Fadnavis’s deputy. The government did not last long and then the Muslim Brotherhood stepped in and Uddhav Thackeray became the Chief Minister. The government collapsed in 2022 as the Sena split. Ajit Pawar then joined the Shinde-Fadnavis team along with other Congressmen. The three united in the Lok Sabha elections against the MVA.
With Yadav’s appointment, the BJP is said to be reviewing its organisational structure in Maharashtra and making changes where necessary. Following the election results, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had requested to be relieved from the government so that he could work full-time for the party organisation. However, he has been asked to continue working. The state party workers have also decided not to remove him from the government and have conveyed their decision to party leaders. Fadnavis, along with the state leaders, is scheduled to attend a party meeting in New Delhi today.
October 2024
Scheduled for the monthly parliamentary elections
