Leaders, office-bearers, workers meet in Mumbai: Putting LS loss behind, Mahayuti looks ahead at Assembly polls, stresses on unity & compromise

Officially, Mahayuti leaders have announced it will contest the coming Assembly polls in Maharashtra together. Therefore, the joint conclave, which was addressed by Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, was significant to instill confidence in the rank and file, and project a united front for the Assembly polls.

The message which emerged from the conclave was the need to unite and accommodate each other, enhance communication to counter the Opposition’s “fake narrative”, and aggressively communicate good governance and welfare schemes to farmers, women, youths, OBCs, SCs and STs across Maharashtra.

Speaking at the conclave, Shinde said, “Unity within the Mahayuti is integral to achieving our goal of Maharashtra’s welfare.” Taking lessons from the Lok Sabha polls, he added, “We will mount concerted efforts to unitedly counter the Opposition’s fake narrative against the government and Mahayuti.”

In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the Mahayuti won just 17 out of the total 48 seats in the state. The Maha Vikas Aghadi — the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) — together won 30 seats.

The Assembly polls in the state for 288 seats is scheduled in October 2024.

At the conclave, Fadnavis presented a detailed analysis on what went wrong in the Lok Sabha polls and laid the roadmap for the Assembly polls. “Compromise is the secret of any coalition success. In a coalition, individual aspirations and assertions do not work. To begin with, everybody should stop criticising each other. If there are any issues they should be discussed within closed doors and brought to respective leaderships’ notice,” he said.

In a stern message to Mahayuti constituents, Fadnavis said, “Lack of unity and lack of coordination do not auger well for the Mahayuti. It defeats the stated objective of collective governance and politics, which is the central issue.”

“After the Lok Sabha success, the Opposition is upbeat. It is willing to compromise to keep its unity intact. Therefore, in such a situation we have to learn to be more accommodative and work together for our common goal,” he added.

“Even if the Mahayuti gets 20 lakh votes more than what it polled in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, it will sweep the Assembly elections. I’m confident we will poll 50 lakh more votes and win 200-plus seats,” he said.

Earlier, addressing the gathering, Ajit Pawar said, “All three ruling party leaders and workers should avoid disputes. The Mahayuti government has initiated some bold decisions for empowerment of women, youths and farmers, which need to be aggressively communicated to the common people.”

“The decision regarding tickets for the 288 Assembly seats party-wise through seat-sharing will be appropriately taken through adequate consultations. The party workers should not worry about it. Instead, they should dedicate their entire efforts to reach out to people and impress upon them the welfare schemes and good governance,” he said.

The common issue which was uniformly voiced by Shinde, Fadnavis and Pawar was that the Opposition will once again try to resort to “fake narratives” on popular schemes like CM Ladki Bahin Yojana, free power to farmers etc to score points against the Mahayuti. It needs to be countered effectively by each worker, they said.

“In the Lok Sabha polls the Centre’s decision to ban onion exports led to massive unrest among farmers. And we paid a huge price. I urge the Centre to not take such decisions. Nor import milk powder. Our government is committed to farmers’ well-being,” Pawar said.

Referring to the agriculture sector, Fadnavis underlined that the free power announced by the government in the Budget Session was a long-term step and not made keeping polls in sight.