Mumbai: “We will win no less than 50 seats in Dhule. Mark my words,” Girsh Mahajan, the minister of water resources and medical education had said while talking to journalists during the recently held winter session of the state legislature in Mumbai. He was so confident of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s victory in the Dhule Municipal Corporation (DMC) that he predicted all other parties, including estranged BJP MLA Anil Gote’s Loksangram, would bite the dust substantially.
Mr Mahajan’s words proved to be true as the BJP scored a landslide victory in Dhule by winning 50 seats in the 74-member DMC. No other party could even reach double figures. Mr Gote’s Loksangram outfit cut a very sorry figure by winning only a solitary seat.
“My aim is ensure the party crosses the 50-figure mark from the present three,” Mr Mahajan had said after being appointed as party in-charge for the DMC polls. With his sharp political acumen and manoeuvring, he did exactly that, thus vindicating the trust that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had placed in him.
With the win in Dhule, Mr Mahajan has added one more feather to his cap. It is his third successive victory in municipal corporation elections. Before Dhule, he had helped the party win the Nashik and Jalgaon civic body elections comfortably.
In the last couple of years, Mr Mahajan has bolstered his image of the CM’s ‘crisis man’. Be it holding talks with farmers’ leaders during their rallies or initiating dialogue with social activist Anna Hazare, the CM has always trusted Mr Mahajan to bail him and the party out of the crisis. And the water resources minister has always delivered the results.
After the party came into power in the state, the CM decided to promote Mr Mahajan in north Maharashtra at the expense of his bete noire Eknath Khadse and gave him responsibility of portfolio like water resources.
