Maha BJP eyeing 45-plus LS, more than 200 seats in tie-up with Sena rebels

New Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Friday said the party will work towards winning 45-plus Lok Sabha seats and more than 200 Assembly segments in the 2024 polls in the state in alliance with the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

Underlining his priorities after the appointment, Bawankule said he will strive to further strengthen the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra, where the saffron outfit is in power in alliance with the Shiv Sena faction led by Shinde. Addressing a press conference in Amravati, the former minister said "I have been appointed to strengthen the organisation in Maharashtra and make the BJP No. 1 party in the state." He said the Maharashtra BJP, under the overall leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, will reach out to the last man in the society. The BJP leader said the state government was committed to the welfare of farmers and was working on a scheme to provide free electricity to cultivators. The BJP will work towards winning 45-plus Lok Sabha seats and more than 200 Assembly constituencies in Maharashtra in the 2024 polls in alliance with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction, said Bawankule, a member of the Legislative Council. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats, the second highest after 80 in Uttar Pradesh. Assembly polls in the state, which has a 288-member House, are due in the second half of 2024. The MLC said the Shinde-BJP government will seek to remove financial and other backlogs of underdeveloped Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, which he claimed, suffered due to wrong policies of the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) administration.