UP train accident: Vaishnaw hold meeting with Maharashtra BJP leaders over assembly polls

Mumbai: Union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday chaired a meeting with Maharashtra BJP leaders here to take stock of the party's preparations for the upcoming assembly elections.

Yadav, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and Vaishnaw who is Railway Minister, are the in-charge and co-in charge of the party in Maharashtra respectively. Members of the core committee of the state BJP, including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and state unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule, were present, party sources said.

The two Union ministers will be in Mumbai on Friday as well, they said.

On July 21, a convention of the state BJP will be held in Pune for which Union minister Amit Shah will be present, the sources added.

Assembly elections in Maharashtra are likely to be held in October this year.

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP's seat count in Maharashtra dropped drastically from 23 in 2019 to just nine, with its ally Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde securing seven seats and the NCP, led by deputy CM Ajit Pawar, managing to win in just one constituency.

In contrast, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), and the Congress, put up an impressive show and collectively won 30 out of the 48 seats.

A report published recently by 'Vivek', a Marathi weekly linked to the RSS, blamed the BJP's move of joining hands with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP for the saffron party's bad performance in the Lok Sabha elections.

Public sentiments turned sharply against the BJP following its alliance with the NCP that subsequently led to bad performance of the saffron party in the parliamentary polls, the weekly said.