Photo: PTIMumbai: In an uncharacteristically aggressive speech at a party event recently, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis took the battle to the opposition camp led by Sharad Pawar, firing up party cadres ahead of next year’s elections in the state and strengthening his own position in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). At the BJP’s foundation day in Mumbai on 6 April, Fadnavis described opposition leaders as a “pack of wolves out ganging up for power grab against a lion called Narendra Modi”. It eclipsed BJP president Amit Shah’s speech that followed and struck a chord with the BJP cadres. BJP functionaries and political analysts agree this new-found aggression helps Fadnavis cement his position further as the face of the BJP campaign in 2019. The reference to senior BJP leader and former Maharashtra revenue minister Khadse and Fadnavis’s cabinet colleague Munde, daughter of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, is revealing.

Source: Mint April 12, 2018 19:52 UTC