Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis to launch poll yatra; PM Modi, Amit Shah to participate

Mumbai: The BJP will officially signal the start of its Maharashtra assembly election campaign when chief minister Devendra Fadnavis begins his Maha Janadesh Yatra (grand mandate march) on August 1. BJP chief Amit Shah will kickstart the campaign from Amravati while Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the concluding event in Nashik.

The mass contact programme is aimed at showcasing the BJP’s welfare schemes and the government’s achievements in the past five years. Fadnavis is expected to traverse 152 out of the total 288 assembly constituencies in the state and hold 104 rallies and 200 smaller meetings. Although the yatra has yet to start, the Maharashtra BJP is already in campaign mode and the state government has made a number of promises and decisions. On Tuesday, the state government cleared in the cabinet that employees working in municipal corporations, councils, Nagar Parishad and Nagar panchayats will also be eligible for a pay scale as per the recommendations of the seventh pay commission.

The state also announced that it was clearing the first phase for creation of a water grid to end the perennial drinking water shortage in Marathwada. The cabinet cleared three more metro projects in Mumbai Metropolitan Region – the Gaimukh to Shivaji Chowk Mira Road Metro, the Wadala to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus Metro and the Kalyan to Taloja Road Metro.


The government also announced that it would bring in a special scheme of its own to ensure that those who are not eligible for the Centre’s Ujjwala Yojana and have no gas connections as a result will get gas connections from the state scheme. Maharashtra has 4.1 million households who don’t have a gas connection.

The decisions were part of the measures that the BJP government is expected to take to woo the electorate ahead of the code of conduct that is likely to be imposed in the second week of September. On Monday, Fadnavis had asked the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission to study the socio-economic conditions of Lingayat community sub castes and submit a report on whether they could be included in the Other Backward Classes category.