Fadnavis rules out organizational reshuffle in Maharashtra BJP post meeting with Amit Shah

Former CM Devendra Fadnavis denied the possibility of an organizational reshuffle in Maharashtra BJP amid rumours about Chandrakant Patil being replaced. Appointed as the president of the party's state unit in July 2019, Patil was elected as an MLA from the Kothrud constituency in the subsequent Assembly election. Both Fadnavis and the Maharashtra BJP chief participated in a party meeting in Delhi besides calling on Union Home Minister Amit Shah separately. The speculation about a change of guard had gained traction as Municipal Corporation elections in Nashik, Mumbai, Pune, and Thane are due early next year. 

Speaking to the media on Friday, BJP's Devendra Fadnavis clarified, "Chandrakant Dada and I came here for BJP's organizational meeting in which national general secretary (organization) BL Santosh, Shiv Prakash, CT Ravi participated. The meeting reviewed the party organization and the way forward. We spent 4-5 hours in that meeting. I don't think there was any other agenda. Amit Shah is our leader. Whenever we come to Delhi, we always meet him. There will be no organizational change." 

Maharashtra MLC polls

The election will be held for 6 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council on December 10 which will coincide with the winter session of the state legislature whereas the counting of votes shall take place on December 14. The poll-bound seats are held by Ramdas Kadam (Shiv Sena), Bhai Jagtap (Congress), Satej Patil (Congress), Amrish Patel (BJP), Gopikishan Bajoria (Shiv Sena) and Girish Vyas (BJP). Although BJP is the single-largest party in the Legislative Council at present with 24 seats, the Maha Vikas Aghadi has 40 MLCs. 

In an interesting development, Shiv Sena’s Sunil Shinde, Congress' Satej Patil and BJP’s Rajhans Singh and Amrish Patel were elected unopposed. While Chandrashekhar Bawankule of BJP and Congress’ Ravindra Bhoyar are in the fray for the Nagpur seat, Shiv Sena's sitting legislator Gopikishan Bajoria will take on BJP’s Vasant Khandelwal in the Akola-Buldhana-Washim seat. Incidentally, Bhoyar was a BJP corporator who jumped ship to Congress on the eve of the MLC polls. 

After Bawankule filed his nomination papers on Monday, Fadnavis briefed the media, "We are extremely happy that our associate like Chandrashekhar Bawankule will enter the Legislature once again. He worked extremely well as a Minister. He proved himself as an alert public representative. In the last two years, he worked extremely well as the party's general secretary. I feel that he has got the receipt of that work today. We are confident that we will secure an unprecedented victory under the leadership of Nitin Gadkari."