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Has Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis hinted at early Assembly elections?

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Kiran Tare
Kiran TareJan 19, 2018 | 11:11

Has Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis hinted at early Assembly elections?

A fortnight after the riot at Bhima Koregaon near Pune, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on January 16 exhorted BJP workers to get into election mode in the next six months. That has led to speculation that the BJP might prepone Assembly election in Maharashtra by a year along with polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram.

In his fourth year as the CM, Fadnavis' hopes to retain power are pinned on two "achievements" — his government’s social welfare schemes and the scattered opposition. While the first one has failed to convince the BJP cadre, the second situation might not last long, in the rapidly changing political scenario.

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Fadnavis has been insisting that BJP workers go out in public beating the drums on his government’s two goals, water conservation and debt-free farmers. The state’s flagship scheme, Jal Yukta Shivar, aimed at making 5,000 villages free of water scarcity every year, has delivered impressive results in some areas. The government has managed to deposit Rs 28,000 crore in the farmers’ bank accounts in an attempt to make them debt-free. However, neither the party workers nor its elected representatives are enthusiastic in advertising the government’s work.

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On the political front, the main opposition parties, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), are slowly but steadily working on their respective revival plans. The Congress has suddenly started feeling energetic after the Bombay High Court refused to prosecute its state president Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh society scam on technical grounds. Now, as he has no fear of action, Chavan is expected to come up with a broad strategy to corner the government.

Confident that the government will not take any action against its two top leaders Ajit Pawar and Sunil Tatkare in the multi-crore irrigation scam, the NCP too has launched aggressive posturing against the government’s policies. A source told Mail Today that a fact-finding committee has not found any evidence of Tatkare’s involvement in the irrigation scam.

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On the contrary, the committee has pointed fingers at Pawar, whom the government does not want to touch due to several political compulsions. Caught in a tricky situation Fadnavis has only one option — boosting the morale of the BJP workers. He needs to pay attention to their grievances and demands and pat their back to make them feel they are also part of the government. His statement on poll preparedness is sparked by the sense of uneasiness he has noticed across the state.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Last updated: January 19, 2018 | 11:11
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