Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president JP Nadda will arrive in Mumbai on February 21 for a two-day visit to Maharashtra, where he will participate in several public and organizational programs.
According to BJP sources, Nadda will inaugurate the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at the party’s state headquarters in Nariman Point on Sunday. He will also address a workers’ conference and a cluster meeting of the party’s Mumbai unit.
On Monday, Nadda will attend a beneficiary conference at Ghatkopar, where he will interact with the people who have received benefits from various central government schemes. He will also hold a meeting with the party’s ‘Panna Pramukhs’ and Mumbai Morcha Aghadi, a coalition of BJP’s allies in the city.
Nadda’s visit to Maharashtra comes amid the ongoing tussle between the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government and the BJP over various issues, including the farm laws, the Maratha reservation, and the COVID-19 situation.
The BJP leader is expected to boost the morale of the party workers and prepare them for the upcoming civic polls in the state. He will also meet the RSS leaders and prominent personalities from different fields during his visit.
Nadda’s visit to Maharashtra is his first after the party’s impressive performance in the recent local body elections, where it emerged as the single largest party with 3,051 seats out of 14,234. The BJP also retained its hold on six municipal corporations, including Nagpur, Pune, and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
The BJP, however, faces a tough challenge from the MVA, which comprises the Shiv Sena, the NCP, and the Congress. The MVA won 4,598 seats in the local body polls and also wrested power in five municipal corporations from the BJP.
The BJP and the Shiv Sena, which were allies for over three decades, parted ways after the 2019 assembly polls over the issue of sharing the chief minister’s post. The Shiv Sena then joined hands with the NCP and the Congress to form the MVA government under Uddhav Thackeray.
The BJP has been accusing the MVA government of being corrupt, inefficient, and anti-farmer. The MVA, on the other hand, has been alleging that the BJP is trying to destabilize the government and create hurdles in its functioning.
