Senior BJP politician and deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, is expected to ask the BJP leadership to remove him from his deputy chief minister duties. This action follows the party’s underwhelming showing in the most recent Lok Sabha elections, in which the BJP’s representation in Maharashtra sharply declined from 23 seats in 2019 to just nine seats this year.
Fadnavis, a pivotal member of the BJP leadership in the state, accepted full responsibility for the party’s electoral defeat.
“I want to work within the organization to help the party do better in the next Assembly elections. My goal is to fully dedicate myself to fortifying the organization. Following a meeting to evaluate the Lok Sabha results, Fadnavis said at a press conference, “I am going to ask my central leadership to release me from the responsibilities of the post in the state government.”
A day following the announcement of the election results, BJP leaders, including Chandrashekhar Bawankule, the chief of the state unit, attended the meeting. Analyzing the party’s performance and talking about future tactics was the main agenda item. Even though the BJP and its allies won 17 of Maharashtra’s 48 Lok Sabha seats, the outcome was viewed as a marked downturn from the 2019 elections.
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Maharashtra saw 23 seats gained by the BJP in the previous Lok Sabha elections. However, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which is made up of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), overshadowed the party’s success this time. Together, the MVA picked over thirty seats, which was a significant win for the alliance. Compared to 2019, Congress gained 13 seats, a notable rise. Nine seats were won by Shiv Sena (UBT), and eight by NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde stated that as they had fought the elections together, they shared responsibility for the loss.
In response to Fadnavis’ offer to resign as deputy chief minister, CM Shinde declared, “The responsibility for the defeat is of all three parties; we worked together.”On June 30, 2022, Fadnavis took the oath of office as the deputy chief minister in the administration headed by Eknath Shinde.
