Days after the Supreme Court verdict which came as a major relief to the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis dispensation in Maharashtra, BJP national president JP Nadda, would be on a two-day visit to the state, during which he would chart out the course for the alliance in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls.
Nadda would arrive here on Wednesday, during which he would be attending a host of events being planned by the Mumbai BJP unit.
Nadda would travel to Pune on Thursday during which he would address the concluding session of the Maharashtra BJP’s revamped state executive.
Around 1,200 BJP functionaries would be attending the meeting.
After the state executive, Nadda would also hold a meeting of MPs and MLAs of the state, followed by a meeting with central ministers and state ministers.
Nadda would also be meeting top RSS functionaries in Mumbai.
The visit comes ahead of the 2023 local bodies polls in the state and the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls.
The visit of the Nadda has been planned by Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule and his Mumbai counterpart Ashish Shelar.
The BJP has an alliance with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Nadda would have an interaction with BJP’s top brass in the state including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on the future plans and how to go about it.
It may be mentioned that the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi said that there are signs that the 2024 general and state elections could be held together in the state.
In fact, the leader of the opposition in the Assembly Ajit Pawar has said that the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls could be together and hence the MVA constituents NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) are formally initiating seat-sharing arrangements.
State BJP leaders, however, have ruled out any move of having the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls together.
On the other hand, the local bodies polls in the state in which several municipal corporations including big cities like Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Vasai-Virar, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Amravati would be held.
These elections would be a sort of mini-Assembly polls and would be a litmus test for both groupings.
As far as Maharashtra is concerned, it has 48 Lok Sabha seats - the biggest chunk after Uttar Pradesh’s 80.
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