Not a cakewalk for BJP but people will choose Modi again: Bhujbal
NCP (Ajit faction) leader Chhagan Bhujbal says the may even go down a few seats from the last time but we will get the largest share.
Senior Nationalist Congress Party leader (Ajit Pawar faction) Chhagan Bhujbal says that while the BJP and the Mahayuthi ruling coalition in Maharashtra will not nd the election in the State a cakewalk, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will still have an advantage in forming the government at the Centre.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Bhujbal said while it was true that this time around, with the split in the NCP and the Shiv Sena, and with six parties ranged against each other in two alliances, it was di¢cult to gauge what the people may be thinking, a national election would still gave Mr. Modi the advantage.
“While people are attending political meetings of this leader and that, they do come around to the view that this is an election to elect the Prime Minister of the country, who should be strong and who should be able to navigate what is going on internationally, be it Russia-Ukraine or West Asia. That gives Prime Minister Modi an undeniable advantage as the INDIA group is not united across the country,” he said.
“In Maharashtra, it is not as though the BJP has a cakewalk as it was in 2014 and 2019, but it is also not the case that the Opposition parties will be able to dominate. The BJP and the Mahayuthi will have to work hard, and we may even go down a few seats from the last time, we will get the largest share,” he said.
Mr. Bhujbal met The Hindu in Nashik, where he was rst tipped to contest but later withdrew from the fray, sowing doubts about dissension in the ranks of the Mahayuthi. He said that he had been sounded out to contest by senior leaders of the alliance, around a month ago, and at that time, he had been advocating for his nephew, former MP
Sameer Bhujbal. Soon after, he started preparations to contest. “But list after list has come out without my name, with news that the Shiv Sena (Shinde) was negotiating to hold on to the seat, and I felt humiliated, which is why I publicly withdrew from the contest,” he said.
Being considered for the seat but followed later by procrastination, he feels, owes also to the feeling that there is a “Maratha versus all” type of contest developing in the State, with confusion among parties over how to deal with the situation in the light of the Maratha quota agitation led by Manoj Jarange-Patil.
“Whatever happened during the Maratha agitation, their striving for cutting into the OBC reservations, the violence that happened during the agitation, has created this situation. Some non-Maratha sections of the population feel why is it that only Marathas will get leadership roles, own sugar factories, dominate cooperative banks and milk cooperatives, and others are kept out,” Mr. Bhujbal said.
Successive governments, he said, had striven to address the issue, but Mr. Patil’s agitation “was a bit much” due to his insistence that the Maratha quota should be carved out of the existing OBC quota, a demand rejected by four commissions and later the Supreme Court, he added.