State BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule warns cryptically ‘Many political bastions have been stormed till now’
@the_news_21
Mumbai: Using the cricketing terminology of using the heavy roller on the cricketing pitch before the game starts, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to be using one ahead to curating the electoral pitch of Baramati constituency for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP has been bending its back in laying the ground for Union Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman’s much-anticipated visit to Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s stronghold of Baramati. The BJP has expressed confidence of giving a tough fight to the NCP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and breaching the hitherto impregnable bastion of the Pawar clan.
Speaking in Baramati on Tuesday, state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule stated that the party had begun its preparations in earnest to “increase the BJP’s strength in Baramati.”
The state BJP president remarked, “We have started preparations and every worker will be conducting a door-to-door campaign. We are confident of a good showing in the next general election. Baramati will witness an electoral fight in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls the likes of which has not been seen till now.”
Bawankule disclosed that Nirmala Sitharaman will be on a tour of the constituency between September 22 to September 24. He added that Sitharaman would be visiting Baramati five-six times over the next 18 months.
He further remarked, “On each of these visits, she will be here for three days at least and review development works, the expectations of the local populace from the central government. Not only this, she will be conducting an audit of ‘Garib Kalyan’ schemes and their outreach to the poorer sections. The objective will be to gauge what the Central and State governments together can do for the betterment and development of the constituency.”
Bawankule accused the erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of putting brakes on the BJP-led Centre’s welfare programmes in the last two-and-a-half years.
Nirmala Sitharaman’s visit is part of the BJP’s ‘Pravas’ campaign to shore up its base in 144 Lok Sabha high profile constituencies across the country ahead of the 2024 general election. She was expected to tour Baramati last month itself but the visit was postponed. Sixteen of the 144 LS constituencies are in Maharashtra of which Baramati in particular is on the BJP’s radar.
When asked about BJPs repeated failed attempts to take Baramati in previous elections, Chandrashekhar Bawankule said that “many political bastions had been destroyed” and that Baramati was nothing special.
The state BJP president remarked “When a party becomes stronger, it can take up bigger challenges. It is not that anyone has any ‘citadel’…many such political citadels have been breached (by the BJP) … Ultimately, it is the public which decides everything and the people today believe in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his national vision. Other parties merely work for their own political interests.”
Given Baramati’s strong identification with ‘Brand Pawar’, the BJP has had a tough time making inroads in this constituency.
In 2019, the BJP had launched a blitz but had failed to topple sitting Baramati MP Supriya Sule and break the stranglehold of the Pawar clan on their Baramati bastion. Supriya Sule’s cousin – Leader of Opposition and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar- has been MLA of the Baramati Assembly segment for more than 30 years, winning the seat a record seven times since 1991.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP had fielded Kanchan Kul, wife of Rahul Kul, Daund BJP MLA who was once a member of Mahadev Jankar’s Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP). However, Kanchan Kul lost to Supriya Sule by a margin of more than 1.5 lakh votes.
Meanwhile, commenting on the BJP’s strenuous efforts to supplant the Pawar’s’ in Baramati, Supriya Sule quipped that she herself would take Nirmala Sitharaman on a tour while Ajit Pawar last month remarked that “all were welcome” to visit the constituency.
