After a below-par performance in Maharashtra, the Mahayuti is now looking at picking its winning MPs from the state to push their names for cabinet ranks. Senior BJP leaders and former union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal are among those finalised while a Maratha leader is also likely to be included, sources said.
According to News18 sources, a decision will be taken on Thursday about who will join as a union minister from Maharashtra. Two MPs from Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena may get a chance, while an experienced MP from the Maratha community is likely to get a cabinet post.
Many contenders are in the race, but the BJP has already finalised Narayan Rane, Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal, who won his debut election from Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency with more than 60 per cent vote share. There is, however, a possibility that this will first be discussed with deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Why the focus on the Maratha community?
There are talks of including an experienced Maratha leader in the cabinet after the NDA suffered a major defeat in the state’s Marathwada region due to unrest in the community members as well as farmers and lack of big development projects.
Marathwada has eight seats – Nanded, Parbhani, Hingoli, Osmanabad, Latur, Aurangabad, Jalna and Beed. The BJP lost all four seats in the region that it contested, including Jalna where union minister Raosaheb Danve bit the dust. Sandipan Bhumare (Aurangabad) is the only candidate of the ruling Mahayuti who won the election in this region.
The Congress won all three seats (Nanded, Jalna and Latur) it contested, while the Shiv Sena (UBT) won three (Parbhani, Osmanabad and Hingoli) out of the four seats it fought from. The NCP (SP) clinched the Beed seat.
Talking to PTI, senior journalist Sanjiv Kulkarni referred to the move by former chief minister Ashok Chavan, who snapped his decades-long ties with the Congress and switched over to the BJP earlier this year.
“There was talk among local people that the Congress gave so much to the Chavan family and there was absolutely no reason for (Ashok Chavan) to switch over… Also farmers were disgruntled over the crop prices,” he said.
He added: “People voted for the Congress even as no big party leader from the state or the Centre came to campaign here. This shows that people voted for the Congress in Nanded on their own.”
Another political analyst Datta Deshmukh said caste factor was dominant in Beed constituency, where the BJP’s Pankaja Munde lost her family bastion to NCP (SP) candidate Bajrang Sonwane in a see-saw battle.
“During the Maratha quota agitation, several people died by suicide over the issue in Beed. But nobody took note of it. The offences registered in the initial phase of the quota protest also played a key role in this election. No development could be seen in terms of investment, infrastructure which was discussed by voters,” he said.
A few months ago, quota activist Manoj Jarange had warned that the Maratha community will teach the Mahayuti government a lesson for denying reservations and registering criminal cases against protesters. The Maratha quota agitation intensified in September 2023 after police lathicharged protesters at Antarwali Sarati, in the Jalna district, where Jarange had launched an indefinite hunger strike. It was followed by violent agitations in Beed and other areas of the region in October, eventually forcing the government to hold talks with him.
(With PTI inputs)
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