Fadnavis assures BJP workers of victory in Maharashtra after Haryana results

Mumbai: Encouraged by the Haryana Assembly poll results, Maharashtra deputy chief minister on Tuesday said it was a first jolt for Rahul Gandhi, who will receive the second setback in Maharashtra in November this year. Congress’s alliance partner Shiv Sena (UBT) also said that the party needs to reassess itself after its defeat in the northern state. However, Congress’s Maharashtra Ramesh Chennithala ruled out that the Haryana results will have any impact in Maharashtra and it has not demoralised the party cadre.

Maharashtra BJP organized a celebration programme at the party headquarter in south Mumbai where Mr. Fadnavis told the party workers and leaders that Haryana’s victory is only the beginning and the trend will continue in the Maharashtra Assembly election. As the BJP did not get a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha election due to poor performance in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, it had badly affected the morale of the party’s rank and file.

Addressing the party workers, Mr. Fadnavis said that Haryana has reposed its faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi again. “After the result of Lok Sabha election, I had stated that we have not been defeated by our opponents but by a fake narrative as there is no political party that can defeat us. We countered the fake narrative, by directly having a dialogue with the people,” he said.

Taking a dig at the Congress leadership, the deputy chief minister said that the people of Haryana have not accepted Rahul Gandhi’s nautanki. “After becoming LOP in Lok Sabha, Haryana has given first blow to Rahul ji and post this, Maharashtra will also give him another blow,” Mr. Fadnavis sarcastically said.

According to the BJP leader, the victory of Haryana will certainly boost the morale of the party leaders and workers ahead of the Maharashtra assembly election, which is likely to be held next month.

Commenting on the Haryana results, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said that the Congress leaders need to reassess and rework their strategies. “The results are surprising. There was widespread talk of anti-incumbency in the state, with farmers feeling frustrated and women in distress. Reports also clearly indicated a strong wave of anti-incumbency, to the point where the Chief Minister had to be changed at the last minute. It seemed like the stage was set for a change in government. However, the BJP won for the third time, beating anti-incumbency. This calls for self-reflection by Congress to identify where mistakes were made and rework their strategies,” she said.

However, Mr.Chennithala said that the Congress wasn’t demoralised with the Haryana results. He said the situation in Maharashtra is completely different as the present state government was not elected by the people, but it was formed after breaking other parties.

“People in Maharashtra are ready for a change and to bring in a new government. We will soon release our manifesto. Our morale is upbeat. The current regime (in Maharashtra) is not a people’s government but came into existence by defections. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will unitedly defeat the Eknath Shinde-led government,” the Congress leader said.

As of Monday evening, 99 shops in Kurnool had received 797 offline applications, 446 of them in just one day. A non-refundable deposit of ₹2 lakh is mandatory for acceptance of an application by authorities.

An official of the excise department told Deccan Chronicle, “We have reported to senior officials that public representatives in some areas are preventing aspiring traders from applying for liquor shops. This could lead to complications in the future. We do not want to be blamed for not facilitating traders from applying for the shops, as we may fall short of achieving our revenue targets.”