Piyush Goyal rejects speculations on change of leadership in Maharashtra BJP

Union Minister and senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal rejected speculations on a change of leadership in the party’s Maharashtra unit following the party’s dismal performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

Goyal said that the BJP leadership has no such idea and no such discussion has taken place in the party’s core committee meeting. There were speculations that Rao Saheb Patil would be made the state president.

Earlier on Tuesday, a meeting of the Maharashtra BJP core committee was held at the BJP national headquarters under the leadership of BJP National President JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.According to sources, the party’s central leadership has given a road map for the assembly elections in Maharashtra. The reasons for losing the Lok Sabha elections were also discussed in the meeting, they said.

After the meeting, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters that all such issues were discussed, including those that had impacted the Lok Sabha election results, and how to overcome those shortcomings in the upcoming assembly elections.

Fadnavis said that the BJP will enter the fray to contest the assembly elections with full force.Union Ministers Bhupendra Yadav, Ashwini Vaishnav, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde, State President Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Pankaja Munde, Ashish Shelar, Chandrakant Patil, and Rao Sahib Patil were present in the meeting.During the meeting, Bhupender Yadav was appointed as the in-charge for Maharashtra and Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw will be the co-in-charge for the state.

The BJP dipped to nine seats in Maharashtra against 23 in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The vote share stood at 26.18 per cent. The Congress, on the other hand, marginally improved its seat share by securing 13 seats in the state.

The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won seven and one seats respectively, taking the total tally of the NDA to 17. The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackrey) got nine seats while the Nationalist Congress Party – Sharadchandra Pawar won eight seats. (ANI)