Delhi won, Team Modi's next goal: Winning Maharashtra without Munde

With elections in Maharashtra only four months away, Team Modi may be headed to the state where the Bharatiya Janata Party reduced the Congress to just two MPs in the Lok Sabha Elections. Already, the Maharashtra state BJP unit has sought the assistance and involvement of BJP general secretary Amit Shah who is credited for the party’s astounding success in Uttar Pradesh. And now, while the state unit of the BJP grapples with the loss of Gopinath MUnde who had emerged as the likely contender to be projected as the party’s chief ministerial candidate, it appears that Prime Minister Narendra MOdi is likely to despatch his team to Maharashtra to strategise and initiate the campaign. [caption id=“attachment_1396527” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nitin Gadkari. AP image[/caption] A report in The Indian Express says Modi himself is too busy to pay attention to Maharashtra right now, but expects his core team to throw their weight behind the state leadership. The Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), the NGO that played an active role in Mission 272, has also agreed to start some research and analysis of local issues, the report said. “The idea is to analyse voting preferences and spot trends that trigger voting decisions. It is the same process on which was founded their campaign strategy in the just concluded general elections,” a person working closely with the CAG team was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, state BJP president Devendra Fadnavis has also sought a meeting with the Friends of BJP, another group that was active in the Modi campaign. The focus will, once again, be on Internet and social media campaigns to start with, in a replication of the Modi campaign that grabbed early eyeballs online. The BJP’s IT cell will also fan out in Maharashtra and rope in local team-members to identify the most emotive issues in the state. The state BJP is trying hard to fill the gap in leadership left by the demise of Gopinath Munde, not only the state’s seniormost BJP leader and the only one who could command huge crowds at rallies, but also the only one who could engage constructively with the highly assertive alliance partner, the Shiv Sena. Efforts are on to bolster the party’s strength in the state with the first of several top Congressmen likely to switch sides already taking place in Nagpur this week. According to a report in the Economic Times Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s reluctance to return to Maharashtra politics will only worsen the leadership crisis in the Maharashtra BJP. “Gopinath Munde was the name on which all of us agreed,” Eknath Khadase, the leader of the opposition in Maharashtra Assembly, was quoted as saying. For now, the BJP is insisting on the concept of “ collective leadership”, a euphemism for the absence of a single clear leader ahead of the polls. The time is ripe for Modi to send his core team to Maharashtra – Gadkari and Fadnavis can handle Vidarbha, but not the rest of the state, where the BJP lacks a pan-Maharashtra face. Even the Modi wave that BJP hoped would continue until the end of Assembly elections would have needed Munde’s strategy and mass support. That’s something the strategy team will be looking at closely as they initiate the Maharashtra campaign.