Revealed: BJP draws up action plan to bounce back for Maharashtra Assembly polls

Following the Lok Sabha poll debacle in the key state of Maharashtra where its tally witnessed a decline from 23 in 2019 to just 9 in 2024, the BJP has decided to embark on a massive outreach plan in an effort to reconnect with voters.

The BJP decided to launch a ‘ghar ghar chalo abhiyan’ (door-to-door campaign) during a recent meeting of the party’s state leadership to conduct an initial review of the election results. With this campaign, the party intends to reach out to communities such as Dalits, tribals, and Marathas that seemingly drifted away from it during the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.

Senior BJP leaders, including Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule, national general secretary Vinod Tawde, and Union Minister Piyush Goyal who is the Mumbai North MP, tried to encourage the party activists during the meeting and emphasised the need for one-on-one communication with voters.

Eye on assembly polls

With hardly a few months left before the state assembly elections scheduled for later this year, the BJP has decided to adopt a multi-pronged strategy for course correction and convincing voters about the track records of the governments at the Centre and the state.

Sources said Fadnavis underlined the fact that the difference in vote share between the Mahayuti ruling alliance and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) bloc was just 0.3 percentage point. “We can easily bridge this gap. Even if we enhance our vote share by 1.5%, we will win the assembly polls. There is no reason to be on the back foot. We will bounce back,” a source quoted him as saying. The NDA got 43.6% of the votes as against the MVA’s 43.9% vote share in the Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP has decided to constitute a committee headed by former Union Minister Bhagwat Karad to analyse district-wise poll results by taking into account people’s feedback as a measure of “course correction”.

“We have to effectively counter the Opposition’s propaganda by reaching out to people and putting forward our side on the Constitution and the Maratha reservation issue,” Bawankule said after party insiders revealed that the Opposition’s “save the Constitution” narrative struck a chord with the people, especially Dalits, who make up 13.5% of the state’s population.

Pacifying Dalit voters

To mollify the Dalit voters who had moved away from the party, BJP workers will connect with the community as a part of the round-the-year events across the state to commemorate 75 years of the Constitution. RPI (Athawale) chief Ramdas Athawale, a BJP ally, has been roped in to plan the events, according to sources.

A senior party leader said they will compile a list of central and state social welfare schemes for Dalit uplift to emphasise the work being done for the community by the BJP-led government. He also pointed that Dr BR Ambedkar International Centre in London was established during the BJP-led regime’s tenure from 2014 to 2019. He said they are ready to counter the Opposition’s narrative which paints them “anti-Dalit”.

Addressing Maratha muddle

Another area of concern for the BJP is to address the raging issue of the Maratha reservation. The party had formed a committee led by Maharashtra minister Chandrakant Patil to ensure that the community, which makes up around 33% of the state’s population, reposes its faith in the party.

Subsequently, Patil suggested that a group of party leaders and MLAs open a channel for dialogue with Maratha organisations in every district of the state. “The party wants to emphasise the fact the community was granted reservation in 2018 during Fadnavis’ tenure as the chief minister but the Supreme Court scrapped the move as the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government could not legally defend it. Moreover, we also want to emphasise that the Mahayuti government led by Eknath Shinde granted reservation to the community earlier this year,” said a source.

BJP insiders said the party would also point out the benefits of quota for Marathas in education. “We will convince them that our opponents have projected us as anti-Maratha and this needs to be countered through dialogue and deliberations,” a BJP leader said.

Sources said the BJP was also working towards getting its caste arithmetic right by empowering OBC, Dalit, and Maratha leaders across the state. The party also needs to work on regaining ground in its bastions of Vidarbha, Marathwada and North Maharashtra, where the farm unrest over issues of declining crop prices and the alleged failure of the government to provide immediate relief may have taken a toll on the party’s prospects in the recent polls.

Fadnavis firmly in control

Meanwhile, the BJP has ruled out any change in leadership in Maharashtra, making it amply clear that Devendra Fadnavis will continue to function as the Deputy Chief Minister in the Mahayuti regime. This cams days after he had offered to quit as the Deputy CM taking moral responsibility for the party’s electoral defeat and to “devote his time to the organisation”.

The BJP high command has now directed Fadnavis to expedite the process of road-mapping seat division for the upcoming assembly elections with the party’s alliance partners — Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and NCP led by Deputy CM Ajit Pawar.

With the elections for 288-member Maharashtra assembly expected to take place in October 2024, the BJP’s immediate concern is to set its house in order and get the alliance partners on board to put up a united front against the MVA, which has got a major boost in the Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP’s recent core committee meeting presided over by Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed reasons for the general elections in the state and also discussed future plans in view of the upcoming assembly polls.

'Not his responsibility alone'

Shah appreciated Fadnavis’ hard work and said there was no need for him to resign. He said the Lok Sabha polls were a collective responsibility and not that of any individual. He stressed the need for team work with greater coordination in the organisation.

According to insiders, the central leadership conveyed the message that “all the leaders in the party should be proactive. It should not be like Fadnavis alone is working. Maharashtra is not his responsibility alone. It should be a team work where everybody has to contribute”.

It was pointed out at the meeting that Fadnavis had managed the coalition government of three parties. The central leadership asked him to plan for the assembly polls after consulting other leaders by June 22, the source said.