Mumbai: After organising grand celebrations in every nook and corner of Mumbai to mark Maharashtra Divas (Maharashtra Day) on Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party made it clear that it is determined to barge into Shiv Sena strongholds to poach Marathi votes.
With programmes in every ward, the grand function ‘Anandotsav’ at Bandra Kurla Complex, BJP kept making inroads in the Marathi voter pockets. It could also be taken as BJP’s attempt to grab space of partner Shiv Sena as well as weak Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in the city of dreams.
The Mumbai BJP organised 257 programmes across the city to celebrate Maharashtra Day on Monday. While organising the mega events, the party saw to it that all wards of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) were covered with some programme or the other. In fact, the saffron party organised two programmes per wards in few Marathi dominated areas like Parel, Lalbaug and Worli. Not just that, the party celebrated state’s founding day at 100 different chowks in Mumbai.
In evening, party also organised grand function of cultural activities at BKC where chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was present with his all his ministerial colleagues. BJP grabbed this chance to organise workshops of BHEEM app for conservancy workers. All these efforts were aimed to keep the Marathi voters in good faith.
Since the BJP has tough competition with Sena in Mumbai, it needs to chase the narrative of ‘Marathi versus Others’ spun by Sena. Maharashtra foundation day is one of the best opportunities for all parties to win over Marathi voters by organising such functions. By taking the lead, BJP underlined the fact that the party is very much serious and steadily working on plans to win the Marathi vote-bank.
