Mumbai: After taking responsibility for the Bharatiya Janata Party's dismal performance in Maharashtra, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asserted that he is not "running away" and assured of winning the "fort" again.
"I have taken the responsibility of election. Devendra Fadnavis is not a man who runs away, is a man who fights and we will win the fort again," Fadnavis said during his address at BJP MLA meeting.
Revealing about having the blueprint available with him to win the polls next time, Fadnavis said, "I had some strategy in my mind. Now we will make Maharashtra's blueprint. I have a political arithmetic. We have got two lakh votes more in Mumbai. But they won 4 seats and we won only two seats."
Attacking the Opposition for coming up with false accusations and a narrative of BJP thinking of changing the Constitution, the Deputy CM said, "They came up with a false narrative. Changing the Constitution. This false narrative is only for one election. PM Modi has done a pooja of the Constitution. He said the Constitution is most important for him."
On the Maratha reservation, Fadnavis said, "They also made a false narrative in the Maratha community. They did not support Maratha reservation every time."
Speaking on the Opposition's claim of BJP driving business out of the state, Fadnavis said, "They came up with a false narrative of BJP taking business out of Maharashtra. Every day they said that we are taking business out of Maharashtra."
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Fadnavis also claimed that Uddhav Thackeray got votes in Mumbai from "one community" and not from the Maratha people.
"It is a false narrative that everyone has sympathy with Uddhav Thackeray. They did not get the Mumbai seat from the Marathi people's votes. The UBT got the seats from Mumbai because of one community," Fadnavis said.
Earlier this week after the declaration of Lok Sabha results, Fadnavis urged the top leadership to unencumber him of his ministerial duties so that he could focus on the party.
"Whatever loss we suffered in the LS polls in Maharashtra, I take full responsibility for it. Therefore, I urge the top leadership to relieve me of my ministerial duties for I need to work for the party and contribute my time to the preparations of the state assembly polls", Fadnavis said.
The BJP dipped to nine seats in Maharashtra against 23 in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The vote share stood at 26.18 per cent. The Congress, on the other hand, marginally improved its seat share by securing 13 seats in the state.
The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won seven and one seats respectively, taking the total tally of the NDA to 17.
The BJP victory tally was much lower than its 2019 tally of 303 and the 282 seats it had won in 2014. The Congress, on the other hand, registered a strong growth, winning 99 seats compared to 52 that it had won in 2019 and 44 seats in 2014. The INDIA bloc crossed the 230 mark, posing stiff competition, and defying all predictions from exit polls.
—ANI