IANS Photo
Mumbai, December 21 (IANS): Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, on Sunday, hailed the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) performance in the 246 nagar parishads and 42 nagar panchayats as a "historic" mandate, claiming the party has achieved a level of success unseen in the state's local body politics for more than two decades.
At the press conference, he highlighted the BJP's emergence as the single largest party with an overwhelming majority of Mayors and Corporators.
Chief Minister Fadnavis said that the scale of this victory is a record in the 20 to 25-year history of Maharashtra's local body elections.
He noted that nearly 75 per cent of the nagar parishad Presidents belong to the ruling Mahayuti alliance, with a substantial portion from the BJP alone (129 Mayors and 48 per cent of total Corporators).
"The BJP won 3,325 seats, accounting for 48 per cent of the total Corporators elected across the state. This marks a massive leap from 2017, where the BJP held 1,602 seats. The Mahayuti alliance claimed victory in more than 200 municipalities, with the BJP independently controlling more than 100 of them," he said.
The Chief Minister added that he personally campaigned in villages with population as small as 10,000, asserting that it is the duty of senior BJP leadership to support the ground-level workers who ensure victory in the larger state Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.
"It would be "ungrateful" to abandon the local karyakartas (workers) who secure victories in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections," he said.
He also congratulated alliance partners Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party for their parties' strong performances, noting that the coordination between leaders like Ravindra Chavan and former Maharashtra BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule was instrumental in surpassing the 2017 records.
He remarked that since 2014, the BJP has transformed from an urban-centric party to one with a deep-rooted presence in rural Maharashtra, cutting across all social and geographical divides.
"In this election, I did not speak against a single individual, leader, or party. We sought votes solely on the merit of development. We presented a 'Blue Print' of our past achievements and future goals. The people have responded to this vision with immense support," CM Fadnavis said.
He also noted that this might be a rare instance in Indian politics where a Chief Minister led a campaign without resort to criticism and still secured a sweeping victory.
Chief Minister Fadnavis criticised the Opposition for their "defeatist mindset", claiming they stayed away from the campaign trail because they anticipated the Mahayuti's landslide victory.
He said that this result serves as a massive endorsement of the current Maharashtra government's development agenda ahead of the upcoming Municipal Corporation elections.
Taking a jibe at the Opposition, CM Fadnavis remarked that rival political leaders sensed the Mahayuti wave and chose to stay away from the campaign trail.
He suggested that Opposition leaders feared they would have "no place to show their faces" to their workers ahead of the upcoming Municipal Corporation elections if they faced a direct defeat on the ground.
The elections for 246 nagar parishads and 42 nagar panchayats were held in two phases.
While the first phase took place on December 2, a second phase for 23 Councils followed on December 20 after administrative delays and court interventions.
The Bombay High Court eventually ordered a synchronised counting of votes for all seats on Sunday.
