PM Modi to meet Maha Yuti legislators in Mumbai on January 15 amid Aghadi fissures

The PM's core message of ‘ek hai to safe hai’ and ‘Modi hai toh mumkin hai’ and the involvement of the RSS seemed to help the BJP-led alliance sweep the Vidhan Sabha polls in Maharashtra, where it has received a drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections.

Mumbai: Months after the spectacular victory in Maharashtra polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his Mumbai visit on Wednesday, would address the legislators of the BJP-led Maha Yuti NDA coalition - a significant meeting ahead of the local body polls.

The PM's core message of ‘ek hai to safe hai’ and ‘Modi hai toh mumkin hai’ and the involvement of the RSS - has helped the BJP-led alliance sweep the Vidhan Sabha polls in Maharashtra, where it has received a drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections.

The joint meeting comes days after BJP's state-level grand convention in Shirdi, which was addressed by Union Home Minister and BJP’s chief strategist Amit Shah.

Modi would be received by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, state BJP President and Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and working President Ravindra Chavan and Mumbai BJP President Ashish Shelar, who is the Information Technology and Culture Department.

Around noon, Modi would address the MLAs of BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP.

The meeting comes close on the heels of the fissures within the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi-INDIA bloc with Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-headed NCP (SP) contemplating to go solo in the local body elections. However, the Congress has not yet reacted so far.

This would be the second visit of Modi after the Vidhan Sabha elections - the earlier being on December 5 last year when he attended the swearing in ceremony of Fadnavis as CM and Shinde and Pawar as Deputy CMs.

Modi would be in Maharashtra for two official engagements - two frontline warships Nilgiri and Surat and submarine Vaghsheer at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai and inauguration of the Sri Sri Radha Madanmohanji Temple, an ISKCON project in Kharghar in the satellite township of Navi Mumbai.

In the Lok Sabha polls involving 48 seats in Maharashtra, the BJP contested 28 but managed to win nine while allies Shiv Sena and NCP got seven and one seats, respectively. However, in the polls to the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, the BJP reversed the situation and won 132 seats of the 149 it contested while partners Shiv Sena and NCP managed 57 and 41 seats.