BJP flag.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Mumbai: Ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections, likely to be held later this year, BJP legislators from Mumbai had a closed-door meeting with RSS leaders on Sunday.
The meeting at Yashwant Bhavan in Lower Parel in central Mumbai lasted over six hours.
As they came out after the meeting, BJP legislators and office-bearers of the party’s Mumbai unit were tight-lipped about what they discussed.
A functionary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BJP’s ideological mentor, called the meeting a “routine” one.
BJP’s Mumbai unit chief Ashish Shelar, an MLA from Bandra, slammed the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) for protesting over the collapse of the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Sindhudurg district on August 26.
Referring to MVA’s protest in south Mumbai on Sunday, he called it “politically motivated” keeping in mind the upcoming state polls.
In the recently held Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-led Mahayuti, also comprising Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and NCP headed by Ajit Pawar, performed poorly, winning only 17 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra.
By contrast, MVA – comprising Congress, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) – bagged an impressive 30 seats.
Elections to the 288-member Maharashtra assembly will likely be held in October or November. Of the 36 seats in Mumbai, BJP had won 16 in the last state polls.