Road to glory in Maharashtra Assembly polls for BJP runs through stronghold Nagpur

Nagpur: Out of the total 12 Assembly constituencies in Nagpur district of Maharashtra, the ruling BJP is contesting as many as 11 seats, while only one has gone to ally Shiv Sena, which perhaps indicates the importance the party attaches to this region.

The party has tasked 50,000 of its workers to reach out to voters ahead of the polls. It is making all-out efforts, including door-to-door meetings and holding interactions with people from different walks of life, to win these seats.

Nagpur is also the home district of several high-profile party leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and state party chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule. Union minister and former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari also hails from here.

Also, the party’s ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is headquartered in Nagpur.

A senior BJP leader said the party has laid much stress on this region and is leaving no stone unturned to win all the seats from here in the next month’s state elections.

Union Home Minister and former party president Amit Shah visited Nagpur on September 24 and interacted with office-bearers of all 62 constituencies in the Vidarbha region. He made a pitch for increasing the vote share by 10 per cent in every booth and work in tandem with all

the alliance partners.

Shah also said that Vidarbha is a stronghold of the BJP and the road to power in Maharashtra goes through Vidarbha.

In the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP won six out of the total 12 seats, Congress four, NCP one and one independent.

This time, the saffron party is contesting 11 seats. Fadnavis, who has earlier successfully contested the Assembly election for five times, is contesting from the Nagpur South-West constituency, while Bawankule is fighting from the Kamptee constituency.

A senior BJP leader said efforts are being made to reach out to maximum voters through meetings and other means. “More than 70 per cent party workers in the district have hit the ground and are going door-to-door to connect with voters. The party workers are reaching out to especially those pockets where a false narrative about the Constitution was spread by the opposition parties,” he said.

Several organisations linked to the Sangh Parivar are doing the needful, the leader said, and expressed confidence that the BJP and the Mahayuti constituents will win all 12 seats comfortably unlike this year’s Lok Sabha elections in

Vidarbha, he said.

Of the 12 constituencies, the BJP is locked in a direct fight with the Congress in most of the seats in Nagpur. While the BJP is contesting 11 seats, its ally Shiv Sena is contesting the Ramtek constituency.

Talking about the BJP’s poll campaign, the party’s Maharashtra spokesperson based in Nagpur, Chandan Goswami, said the booth workers are moving from door-to-door to meet voters. They are also seeking suggestions from people to be included in the BJP manifesto. “More than 50,000 workers are working on the ground in Nagpur district to connect with the voters. They are also holding meetings with people from all walks of life, including doctors, lawyers, businessmen and employed

people,” he said.