Eye on gram panchayat polls: Maharashtra BJP focus on rebuilding organisation at grassroots

The day-long meeting saw participation of 46 state BJP district prabharis (in-charge). Apart from these there were sessions with various cell in-charge. The state core committee meeting will take place on Wednesday to evolve a political and organisational strategy.

Opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis and state BJP president Chandrakant Patil presided over the meeting. Fadnavis told media persons, “The purpose of the meeting was to deliberate and address matters related to the organisation. The objective is to put a plan to strengthen the organisation.”

The BJP, which has completed one year in opposition, reckons it will have to double its effort to counter the ruling combine on policies, plans and social engineering.

The gram panchayat elections scheduled mid-January will be a litmus test for the BJP. And it will be followed by a series of municipal corporation polls later this year. The mother of all battles will be the BMC polls in early 2022.

A former BJP minister who participated in the meeting requesting anonymity said, “The one message that came through clearly was, everybody should shed their tag of in-charge or leader and become integral to the system. The ultimate goal is to build a strong organisation.”

According to party media cell head Vishwas Pathak, “The organisational exercise is undertaken to both ascertain preparedness and also motivate workers to put in greater efforts.”