The formal announcement of Lok Sabha elections has not been made yet, but the election stir has intensified. PM Modi has started creating a political atmosphere by visiting states one after the other. In this series, the Prime Minister will visit three states on Friday and bless Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu with the gift of development. PM Modi will first reach Solapur in Maharashtra. After this, he will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of many development projects in Bengaluru, Karnataka and finally in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
This tour of three states before the Lok Sabha elections is considered important in many respects, but in the changed political environment of Maharashtra, this is the second visit of PM Modi in a week. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of eight AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) projects worth about Rs 2000 crore in Solapur in southern Maharashtra. Apart from this, Modi will also dedicate more than 90,000 houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana to the beneficiaries and will also hand over 15,000 houses of Rainagar Housing Society in Solapur to the beneficiaries. These beneficiaries include thousands of handloom workers, vendors, power loom workers, rag pickers, beedi workers and drivers.
Only last week, PM Modi had unveiled the country's longest bridge Atal Setu in Nashik, Maharashtra and gifted other projects worth about Rs 15,000 crore. Now once again he is on a tour of Maharashtra and will dedicate development schemes worth thousands of crores to the state. The Prime Minister's frequent visits to the state reflect the BJP's efforts to leverage his popularity and his government's development message to strengthen its position and win maximum seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha and subsequent Assembly elections in Maharashtra.
Target to win 45 plus seats out of 48 in Maharashtra
After Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra has the highest number of seats. There are 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, while 48 in Maharashtra. BJP has set a target of winning 45 plus seats out of 48 in Maharashtra in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In the last two elections, BJP and undivided Shiv Sena had managed to win 41 seats as part of the alliance. The political situation of Maharashtra has changed a lot. Shiv Sena and NCP have divided into two factions. Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar's NCP are with Congress. Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP have formed the government in Maharashtra in alliance with BJP.
Despite being with Shinde and Ajit Pawar in Maharashtra, BJP does not want to take any kind of risk in the 2024 elections. Therefore, before starting the Lok Sabha battle, BJP has increased its activism in order to gain an unassailable lead over the opposition. PM Modi himself has taken charge. All small and big projects in Maharashtra are inaugurated by PM Modi so that it can have political impact. This trend has been continuing in Maharashtra since 2022, when the government was formed in the state under the leadership of Eknath Shinde with the support of BJP.
Solapur area is the stronghold of Sushil Kumar Shinde
PM Modi visited Nagpur in December 2022, where he dedicated the Samriddhi Mahamarg. The benefits of this scheme are expected to be available in Vidarbha, Marathwada and North Maharashtra. This was PM Modi's first visit to Maharashtra after Uddhav Thackeray was ousted from power and the BJP coalition government was formed under the leadership of Shinde. Since then, PM Modi has visited Maharashtra seven times and Friday is his 8th visit to Solapur. The area of Solapur is considered to be the stronghold of veteran Congress leader Sushil Kumar Shinde, whom BJP is trying to woo. Sushil Kumar Shinde himself has said this and now PM Modi has blessed Solapur with the gift of development and is trying to settle political equations before the Lok Sabha elections.
Apart from flagging off two Vande Bharat trains connecting Mumbai to the important pilgrimage sites of Shirdi and Solapur in February 2023, PM Modi also inaugurated the Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road and Kurar Underpass, aimed at decongesting traffic in the city . Seven months later in August 2023, PA Modi shared the stage with NCP chief Sharad Pawar during his visit to Pune for an event. Modi also flagged off a metro train and laid the foundation stone of a power plant for the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. In September, Modi visited Ahmednagar district and dedicated to the people the canal network on the left bank of the Nilwande dam, a Rs 5,177-crore irrigation project that was pending for three decades. On the same day, the Prime Minister visited the Shirdi temple and inaugurated a state-of-the-art air-conditioned waiting room facility for pilgrims.
Different outlines of PM Modi's Maharashtra tour
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited Maharashtra in the last 13 months and has tried to cover at least 15 important Lok Sabha constituencies like Nagpur, Pune, Ahmednagar, Shirdi, Nashik, Sindhudurg and Solapur. These also include six Lok Sabha constituencies of Mumbai – Mumbai South, Mumbai North, Mumbai, South Central, Mumbai North East and Mumbai North West. All this has been covered by the Prime Minister during his two visits to Mumbai. Apart from this, a plan is being made for PM Modi's tour to different areas of Maharashtra so that the entire area can be covered before the announcement of Lok Sabha elections. The reason behind this is that BJP wants to win maximum seats in Maharashtra in 2024.
There are total 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. BJP will contest the elections along with Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP. Apart from this, Ramdas Athawale's party is also included. In Maharashtra, BJP will contest the elections on maximum seats, out of which it is believed that it can contest on 30 seats. In this way, BJP may win the maximum number of seats by fighting on 30 seats, but how will it be able to achieve the figure of 41 seats won by NDA in 2019, because there are three big factions together in the opposition alliance. In such a situation, along with preserving the 21 seats it won in 2019, the BJP will also have to write the script of victory for Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP. It remains to be seen what kind of political ground is PM Modi able to prepare in 2024 by visiting Maharashtra?
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