In Poll-bound Maharashtra, BJP Appoints Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav as Incharge

The BJP on Monday appointed Union minister Bhupender Yadav as the poll incharge for the Maharashtra assembly elections. Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw will be his co-incharge in the western state, where the party’s last performance during the Lok Sabha elections was not up to the mark. It won nine out of a total 28 seats it contested from as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance.

According to a statement issued by the BJP, national president JP Nadda also announced the incharges and co-incharges for other poll-bound states like Jharkhand, Haryana as well as Jammu and Kashmir. Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will oversee the polls in Jharkhand alongside Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan is the incharge for Haryana with former Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb as co-incharge, while Union minister G Kishan Reddy will be the sole incharge of J&K.

While assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand are due later this year, the Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission of India to hold the elections in J&K by September.

All eyes on Maharashtra

The Maharashtra polls will be crucial where the ruling BJP-led NDA, known as the ‘Mahayuti’ in state parlance, is smarting from major losses and will be seeking to reclaim lost ground. It will once again be up against the Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).

There has been much speculation over the ruling coalition’s unity in the run-up to the assembly polls, since the results of the Lok Sabha elections brought internal conflicts out in the open. Some in the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena have blamed the BJP for the losses incurred while the top leadership has maintained that the alliance is very much in place.

There is also the matter of open threats over unresolved issues like cabinet expansion and Rajya Sabha nominations with discord coming to the surface in the NCP. There are reports of discontent over the nomination of Sunetra Pawar, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s wife, for a vacant Rajya Sabha seat. She lost from Baramati to her sister-in-law Supriya Sule in the Lok Sabha polls.

The top leadership of the BJP has held a series of meetings with its functionaries in the days following the Lok Sabha election results. In fact, deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis had also offered to resign from his post and work in the organisation for the upcoming polls.

(With PTI inputs)