Devendra Fadnavis reveals reason for BJP’s poor Maharashtra performance in Lok Sabha polls – ‘failed to counter…’

Deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, has attributed the abysmal performance of Mahayuti alliance in Lok Sabha Elections 2024 to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Fadnavis said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ‘failed miserably’ to set the counter-narrative to the yatra, which he called a force formed by people having ‘anarchist and ultra-leftist’ mentalities.

“I completely admit that during the Lok Sabha elections, we failed miserably to set a counter-narrative and we have to be blamed for that. At least in Maharashtra, I failed and we were also overconfident,” Fadnavis told The Indian Express in an interview.

In the Lok Sabha Elections 2024, the BJP lost ground in Maharashtra. It won just nine of the 28 seats it contested in 2024, as against 23 of the 25 seats it contested in the 2019 general elections.

“Basically, during the Lok Sabha polls, we were not fighting against parties, but were fighting against forces… Bharat Jodo was a force, formed by people with anarchist and ultra-leftist mentalities. This force created a hyperlocal narrative, and when we realised that they were creating a narrative against us, we had no capacity, capability and apparatus to counter it. We could not do anything about it,” he said.

The east to west Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was the second version of Rahul Gandhi's march that started on January14 from Thoubal in Manipur, which covered 6,713 kms through 15 states before culminating in Mumbai on March 16. The first version called the Bharat Jodo Yatra, started on September 7, 2022, from the south in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, and concluded in January 2023, in the north in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir,after covering 4,080 kms, across 12 states.

Fadnavis' remarks come ahead of elections to the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly to be held in a single phase on November 20.

The BJP, in alliance with Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena under the ruling Mahayuti banner, is contesting against the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), the NCP (Sharad Pawar) and the Congress in Maharashtra assembly election.

‘Ready for fight now’

“But now we are completely ready and we have the capacity. We have nullified that narrative and fed the real narrative so now we don’t have anything to worry about,” Fadnavis said