BJP Hopes for RSS Magic in Maharashtra Muddle

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RSS Holds BJP on Shoulder in Maharashtra Poll Battle

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, November 22: The Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) held as many as 1000 meetings in Nagpur alone in the midst of the electioneering for the Maharashtra Assembly elections. Shunning Nawab Malik, the RSS foot soldiers manned booths for the BJP allies – the Shiv Sena (Shinde) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of Ajit Pawar.

The poll outcome of the Maharashtra Assembly elections will be out on Saturday. The pollsters, smitten by the Haryana Assembly poll verdict, are now leaning on the BJP-led Mahayuti to take Maharashtra.

“Except for the Nawab Malik Assembly constituency, the RSS workers have manned all the Assembly seats in Maharashtra. The RSS was sanguine to look after the seats of even the BJP allies. We have to see the outcome on Saturday,” said a senior BJP functionary.

Also Read: BJP wit house in disorder stares at looming assembly polls

Malik hails from the NCP of Ajit Pawar. His relations in the past with saffron outfits had been stormy.

“The RSS functionaries held as many as 21000 meetings, close-doors, all across Maharashtra in the last three months. They laboured with intensity in the Vidarbha region where the BJP-led Mahayuti had almost been wiped out in the Lok Sabha elections,” said a senior BJP functionary from Maharashtra.

The BJP’s SOS to the RSS had been on the back of the saffron outfit running into festering anger among the farmers of onion, soybean and cotton, besides the Marathwada reservation. Besides, Ajit Pawar emerged as the weak link in the Mahayuti per alliance sources.

While Maharashtra is a backyard for the RSS, which will commemorate centenary celebrations next year, the BJP had run out of steam ahead of the Assembly polls. The Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi won 30 of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats in June.

Campaigning by the top guns of the BJP had more been focused on Jharkhand in place of Maharashtra. Besides, the Maharashtra unit of the BJP also grabbed headlines for internal squabbles.

Also Read: Congress-BJP gird up for largest party status in Maharashtra

“The RSS outreach may impact the preference of Dalit and the OBC vote bases in Maharashtra,” added the BJP functionary. Maharashtra’s towering political icon Sharad Pawar once more played an emotional card ahead of the state elections. Pawar said that this will be his last elections in active politics.

With six main political parties in the electoral ring in Maharashtra, the MVA on basis of the Lok Sabha polls’ outcome looked a clear winner in the Assembly elections. Yet, the political observers after the Haryana experience refuse to stick their necks out.

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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