Daring BJP to name its leader for Maharashtra polls, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday took a jibe at the party for seeking votes in Narendra Modi’s name when it will be the Chief Minister and not the Prime Minister who will be taking day-to-day decisions in the state.
As the Congress-NCP alliance battles anti-incumbency of last 15 years, Chavan said Congress “may drop” some MLAs if there is public anger against them and more opportunities would be given to youth and women.
At the same time, he made it clear that this would not be done at the cost of those who have nurtured their constituency, indicating that the upcoming candidate list of Maharashtra would be a mix of experience and youth.
“The fact is that Modi is not going to be the Chief Minister of the state. I think BJP is going to campaign by saying that we have Modi in Delhi. How does it help?,” he said adding that ultimately state government has to run on day-to-day basis.
“You cannot ask Modi what to do? People know that a person in charge, a person on Chief Minister’s chair, has to take decisions on minute to minute basis. So saying that we have Modi is neither here or there,” he said.
Chavan’s comments egging the BJP to declare its face for the state Assembly election comes in the backdrop of a tussle over leadership issue between BJP and Shiv Sena with the latter insisting that Uddhav Thackeray would be chief ministerial face of the alliance.
Modi is expected to aggressively campaign for the October 15 polls in the state and BJP is hoping that it will build on its Lok Sabha gains when the BJP-Sena combine bagged 42 out of 48 seats.
“There is a clear choice in Shiv Sena, Congress and in NCP. So other parties have got a clear choice of leader. People will choose party, party’s ideology as well as party’s leader. So, BJP will very soon have to declare who their leader is. So far they have not been able to project anyone to lead the election,” he said.
