Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
hrowing down the gauntlet to NCP, Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis reaffirmed BJP’s resolve to win Sharad Pawar’s bastion of Baramati in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Maintaining that no one should be overconfident, he recalled that even the late Indira Gandhi was defeated in 1977 when she was the Prime Minister. While Sharad Pawar won the Baramati Lok Sabha seat from 1996 to 2004, his daughter Supriya Sule retained it in 2009, 2014 and 2019. On the other hand, the NCP supremo’s nephew Ajit Pawar has been an MLA of the Baramati Assembly seat since 1991.
Speaking to the media in the Pune district on Wednesday, Devendra Fadnavis remarked, “I want to tell him that Indira Gandhi was the most popular leader in India in her heyday. Even she had to face defeat. That’s why no one should live under the illusion that someone can’t be defeated. We are not doing this to defeat a person. It is Mission Maharashtra. We have to win seats. It is immaterial who the person is. We feel that there should be a firm government in Maharashtra and the country under the leadership of Modi Ji.”
He was responding to Maharashtra NCP chief Jayant Patil who claimed, “This attempt (of conquering Baramati) is not new. The sun may rise in the west, but Baramati will never leave Sharad Pawar”. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Sule defeated BJP’s Kanchan Kul by a margin of 1,55,774 votes.
BJP’s focus on 144 seats
Baramati is one of the 144 seats which is on the radar of the BJP to win a third successive term at the Centre. They include not only the constituencies where BJP candidates suffered a defeat but also winning seats where there are difficult demographic and regional factors. While these seats were divided into clusters with one Union Minister being named their in-charge, another set of ministers was sent to assess the political situation by visiting all assembly segments within these constituencies.
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Reportedly, the Union Ministers have done a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the BJP’s position in these seats and identified steps to be taken to ensure its victory in the 2024 elections. Earlier on Tuesday, sources told Republic TV that BJP has summoned the Chief Ministers and Deputy CMs of all the states ruled by the party to Delhi next week to discuss the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. This high-level meeting will be chaired by PM Modi, sources indicated. As per sources, BJP has set the target of winning 50% of the seats which it lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
