Mumbai, July 12: After facing a serious drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its leadership is leaving no stones unturned to make amends.
With poll preparations appearing to be in top gear already, BJP president Rajnath Singh, on day two of his three-day trip to Mumbai, announced Gopinath Munde as the in charge of poll preparations ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections to be held later this year.
Speaking at a press conference at the BJP’s Dadar office, Singh also said that Munde will be assisted in this task by BJP state president Nitin Gadkari. Adding that election results could never be gauged with any level of certainty, Singh added that a team of representatives from the party was working to assess the reasons for BJP’s poor performance in the recently-held Lok Sabha elections.
The status report will be completed by the end of July and Singh promised that the results would be made public in August.
While skillfully skirting the issue of a possible pre-poll alliance with Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Singh maintained that the BJP and Shiv Sena would contest the elections as partners.
Singh also denied allegations that Gujarat Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Narendra Modi’s involvement in the Maharashtra leg of Lok Sabha elections proved detrimental for the party. “He is a national leader. Just as one travels to various parts of the country to campaign for the party, Modi will do so in Maharashtra as well,” Singh clarified.
While basing his address on the party’s preparedness ahead of the Assembly elections, Singh also touched upon BJP’s role as an effective and able opposition party.
Referring to the government’s stimulus package and the increasing fiscal deficit, Singh said that the Congress government needed to publish a ‘status report’ on the budget.
Aside from addressing the press, the party president, along with Gadkari, took time out to meet ailing Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who is currently undergoing treatment at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai.
–Agencies