Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The BJP which was once an insignificant entity in district politics and has strengthed its grip in three and a half decades. BJP is now ready to capture the entire district and set the target to win the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
It may be noted that the party had appointed Tatya Pargaonkar as the city president in 1977. BJP entered city politics with the victory of two corporators in the first Municipal Council election held in 1988.
It was the beginning of the party to strengthen the grip on the politics of the district. In 1988, the party decided to form an alliance with Shiv Sena. Haribhau Bagde was not ready for the alliance. With the intervention of Pramod Mahajan, an alliance was formed. The alliance continued until the 2015 Municipal Corporation elections (excluding the 2014 assembly elections) and 2019 assembly elections.
In the local Municipal Corporation, BJP has 23 corporators whose term ended in April 2020 while in Zilla Parishad, it had 22 members. BJP claims to have 360-gram panchayats out of a total 824 in the district.
BJP has Vaijapur Municipal Council (MC) while there are administrators on MCs of Kannad, Gangapur, Khuldabad and Paithan.
MC of Sillod is under the control of the Agriculture Minister.
There were two assembly constituencies namely East and West in the city until 2005. BJP's influence remained in the east.
The city has four constituencies including Phulambri in 2009 after the delimitation commission reorganised the constituencies.
Three constituencies-Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar East, Gangapur and Phulumbri are currently under the control of the BJP while it is preparing to contest the next assembly elections on its own.
If the party continues its alliance with the Shinde group, the party’s senior leader will take decision to give him some seats through negotiation.
Before this, BJP has completed two rounds of preparations for the Lok Sabha elections, it is still not clear whether the seat goes to the Shinde Group or whether the BJP will get it.
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Their contribution to party’s growth
First City District President late Tatya Pargaonkar, late Pt Dnyanendra Sharma, Kailaschand Rathi, late Shaligram Basaiye, Vijaykumar Mehar, Cooperative Minister Atul Save, union Minister of State for Finance Dr Bhagwat Karad, Basavaraj Mangrule, Bhagwan Ghadmode, Kishanchand Tanwani, Sanjay Kenekar contributed to party’s growth. Currently, Shirish Boralkar is holding the responsibility.
MLA Bagade, Dr Karad, and Basavaraj Mangrule got the opportunity to work on the State level as vice presidents while Sanjay Kenekar and Atul Save were appointed as State level general secretaries. Vijaya Rahatkar reached the post of National General Secretary. Pandharinath Chavan, Asaram Talekar, Eknath Jadhav, Sandu Lakehande, Suresh Bankar, and Vijay Autade strengthened the party organisation in rural areas.