After former CM Ashok Chavan joined the BJP, the party appears much more confident in securing the Nanded Lok Sabha constituency. It seems that the BJP has achieved its goal of gaining supremacy from Panchayat to Lok Sabha elections and has also mastered the tactics of divide and rule, opined political experts. After Chavan's resignation, the Congress faced trouble in nominating its candidate for the Rajya Sabha. Moreover, the BJP managed to secure six Rajya Sabha MPs, including Chavan.
The BJP believes that gaining Nanded without the help of Ashok Chavan will be very difficult for them. Despite the Modi wave across the country, Chavan won the election in 2014 by defeating BJP candidate D.B. Patil. In 2019, he gave a tough fight to BJP candidate Prataprao Chikhalikar but lost by 40,148 votes. He secured 1.66 lakh votes but suffered defeat due to the split of secular votes between him and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi candidate.
In 2024, the BJP has set a target to win more than 400 seats in the Lok Sabha. The state BJP does not want to take any risks in any constituency, hence bringing Chavan into the BJP is considered one of the strategic moves towards achieving this goal. Traditionally, Nanded has always been a Congress-dominated constituency, and the BJP aims to break this tradition now, opined the experts.
