BJP to replicate Aurangabad formula across State

Former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde, who moved the political resolution of the party today, urged workers to take up local issues and launch agitations to expose the lapses of the Vilasrao Deshmukh government. He said that there was no need to wait for permission from the party’s superiors for launching agitations on local issues. He however asked workers to take care that apart from party workers, the local residents participated in agitations to gain political mileage.

Munde’s role in the recent municipal elections in Aurangabad, where the BJP had contested and won its own and later forged an alliance with the Shiv Sena, was appreciated widely by almost all the 24 speakers who spoke on the resolution, calling for repeating the formula all over the state in ensuing polls. However, there was no criticism of Shiv Sena and everyone exercised caution in not venting any ire against it. Even delegates refused to come on record, when contacted, over the ongoing alliance with the Sena stating that they would follow the leaders.

The demands for replicating the Aurangabad formula across the state did not prevent Munde from making a categorical statement to the press that the BJP-Sena alliance would continue in future. He said that the alliance would be limited to Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls and not for municipal and local self governing bodies. The strategy apparently is to strengthen the party at the village-level in rural areas and at the ward level in urban areas and show its performance in the ensuing gram panchayat, panchayat samiti and municipal polls across the state. The newly elected president, Phundkar, as well as the Union minister for information technology Pramod Mahajan called for efforts to ensure that the BJP came to power in Maharashtra in the next assembly polls without any "crutches" (support from allies).

The convention passed three resolutions, congratulating the Vajpayee government at the centre; condemning the Vilasrao Deshmukh government in the state for failure on all fronts; demanding increase in the procurement prices of milk from June 1 and condemning the hike in power tariff for farmers. The convention also resolved to launch a massive agitation across the state to expose the lapses of the state government.