Maharashtra politics: What Piyush Goyal said after BJP’s key review meet amid change in leadership speculation

Union minister Piyush Goyal has ruled out any change in its leadership in Maharashtra after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s forgettable performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and asserted that the party was working on a blueprint for the Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP coalition to emerge victorious in the assembly polls, due later this year.

“There will be no change in leadership in Maharashtra,” Piyush Goyal told reporters after the Maharashtra BJP’s core group meeting with party president JP Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Tuesday.

There was speculation that Rao Saheb Patil would be made the state president. Speculation was also rife in the state over the continuance of the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the ruling alliance.

Piyush Goyal said the BJP leaders discussed the strategy to ensure the re-election of the MahaYuti alliance in the upcoming assembly election.

The meeting was attended by senior BJP leaders BL Santosh, Bhupender Yadav, Ashwini Vaishnaw, state BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil, Pankaja Munde, Raosaheb Danve and Vinod Tawde, among others, news agency PTI reported.

In the Lok Sabha elections 2024, the BJP won just nine seats in Maharashtra, down from its 2019 tally of 23. The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had won 41 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in the 2019 elections. This cumulative number of the present-day National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came down to 17 seats – seven for the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and one member of the NCP.

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had offered to resign from the MahaYuti government of Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP and focus on the organisation to win the September-October assembly polls.

“We have prepared a blueprint for the upcoming assembly elections and how to win it along with the MahaYuti alliance partners,” Devendra Fadnavis said after the meeting.

He also said the meeting at the BJP headquarters also discussed the party’s performance in the Lok Sabha elections.

Fadnavis said the difference between the vote share of the ruling MahaYuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was just 0.3 per cent, and the leaders discussed in detail the shortcomings and strengths of the BJP in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections.