Will win more seats than 2019 in 2024 polls: Fadnavis

As BJP national president J P Nadda launched preparations for the 2024 elections in Maharashtra asking party leaders and workers to gird their loins, party’s veteran leader and trouble-shooter Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday assured the top brass that it would win more seats in the 2024 elections.

While the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled in the first half of 2024, it would be followed by Vidhan Sabha polls in the second half.

The western Indian state has 48 Lok Sabha seats, while the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly comprises 288 seats.

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“Let us assure you….we will win more seats than the previous time (2019) in both the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha,” Fadnavis said addressing the meeting of the revamped state executive comprising over 1,200 members.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-Shiv Sena jointly had won 41 out of the 48 seats in Maharashtra with BJP winning 23 and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena 18.

In the Maharashtra Assembly polls held in October 2019, the BJP won 105 seats, while the Shiv Sena bagged 56 seats.

However, in June 2022, the BJP engineered a split in the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and toppled the Maha Vikas Aghadi government after which rebel Eknath Shinde became the Chief Minister and Fadnavis, former Chief Minister, chose to be the Deputy Chief Minister.

The Election Commission had legitimised Shinde’s faction as the real Shiv Sena and allotted the bow and arrow symbol. The Thackeray-group now is known as Shiv Sena (UBT).

On the other hand, the Supreme Court, though, said that the move of then Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari was not proper to call Thackeray for a floor test, said that the decision to call Shinde to form the next government was correct.

At the meeting, Fadnavis asserted: “The government is legal, legitimate and constiutional…and the Supreme Court judgement reflects that.”

Fadnavis told party workers to work selflessly. “The remaining six months of 2023 and the first six months of 2024 are going to be very important for all of us…work selflessly without expecting anything,” he said.