The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would mainly rely on welfare politics to build the foundation for the general and state elections with Maharashtra elections just a little over two years away, a top party leader stated. The top politician declared, “With a very short time at our disposal, the Maharashtra BJP unit has almost finalised a plan to prioritise such programmes and policies over any large-scale project.” The new government, headed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, would concentrate on covering more people under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in urban areas, according to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. “According to our analysis, only 16% of urban beneficiaries had their homes constructed under the PMAY.
In rural areas, the PMAY’s coverage is nearly 75%,” he had said.
Another welfare scheme that the state government may prioritize would be the laying of pipelines that supply drinking water to every home in semiurban and rural areas of Maharashtra under the Jal Jeevan Scheme. A senior BJP leader said: “If we could succeed in increasing the number of beneficiaries under both these schemes, it would have a long-lasting impact… and the goodwill could reflect in…elections in our favour.” A former Maharashtra minister from the BJP said that the Jal Jeevan Scheme would address very crucial and long-pending problems in rural areas. Under this scheme, he said, rural parts of the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions would be targeted, as the maximum number of people from these areas suffer due to a lack of assured drinking sources.
