In a major organisational shakeup, the former energy minister and OBC leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Friday was appointed as the Maharashtra BJP unit chief while former school education minister and Maratha leader Ashish Shelar will head the Mumbai unit. Incidentally, both Bawankule and Shelar are close to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Bawankule was denied a ticket in the 2019 assembly elections but he was elected to the state council on June 20. In the case of Shelar, who had held the Mumbai BJP chief’s post earlier, was denied a ministerial berth and appointed for the second time when the party has launched Mission 2022 to win BMC elections along with the Shinde camp and defeat Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena which was ruled India’s richest civic body for almost three decades.
The announcement of appointments of Bawankule and Shelar were made by BJP national general secretary Arun Singh.
Bawankule hails from Vidarbha where the BJP has consolidated its position over the period while taking the advantage of the weakening Congress party. Bawankule’s appointment came days after the Supreme Court restored the 27% OBC quota in the urban and rural bodies. Elections to 14 municipal corporations, 25 Zilla Parishad and a couple of urban local bodies are slated in October or November with the reservation for OBCs. During the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi, Bawankule along with Fadnavis and other party leaders were at the forefront of demanding the restoration of the OBC quota in the urban and rural local bodies.
BJP proposes to play the OBC card in the upcoming local body elections and also in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections to achieve Mission 45 whereby the party plans to win maximum seats of 48 Lok Sabha seats and also 170 plus of the 288 assembly seats along with new ally the Shinde led Shiv Sena.
As far as Shelar’s reappointment is concerned, he was firing salvos against the Maha Vikas Aghadi government and also against the Shiv Sena-led BMC on a number of issues including corruption and malpractices. Shelar along with other city leaders have already launched ward-wise drives to expose scams while assuring a strong and corruption-free administration if elected in the upcoming BMC elections.
Shelar will have to strive to lure Marathi Manoos along with voters from other communities to defeat Thackeray-led Shiv Sena. Even though the party plans to ride on the Modi wave, it will have to increase its connection with Marathi Manoos in particular as the Thackeray faction after the Shinde-led rebellion has already geared up poll preparations with outreach to traditional vote bank the Marathi Manoos. Although BMC elections will be fought on local issues such as roads, connectivity, water and sanitation, BJP may have to be ready to pacify the people who are hit by soaring prices of essential commodities, and rising unemployment.
Besides, Shelar led BJP will have to effectively counter Thackeray faction’s charge of separating Mumbai from Maharashtra and reducing its importance as the financial capital of the country.
