Eyes on Assembly polls, Maha BJP looks to Amit Shah

Maharashtra BJP will be seeking the "expertise and guidance" of Narendra Modi's Man Friday Amit Shah, in helping propel the five-party Mahayuti alliance in the state to victory in the Assembly polls, due in just over five months.
"Yes, we will certainly take help of Amit Shah's expertise and guidance in the Assembly polls," state BJP president Devendra Fadnavis told reporters here today.
He was replying to a query on whether BJP's state unit will use the political acumen of Modi's master strategist to wrest power from Congress-NCP in the Assembly elections.
On the dismal performance of NCP, whose strength was reduced from eight to four, Fadnavis said, "NCP was an Innova party last time. We have made it a Nano party now. They should learn from this."

Both the parties (Congress and NCP) went into a denial mode whenever questions were asked about problems facing the state, he said.
"The state government did not help people in times of distress like hailstorm thats why people rejected it. We feel the government should face elections as people have expressed total distrust in it.

"Modi has said we don't want to indulge in vindictive politics. So no difficulties will be posed by Centre for state government. Whatever assistance is expected from Centre, we will get it," he said.
BJP MPs from state will meet in Delhi on May 20.

"We will soon meet Modi and request him to grant relief to the state to help it provide relief for hailstorm affected.
"These elections have proved that BJP got votes from all sections of society. We got double the number of votes compared to 2009 polls," Fadnavis said.
"People should give the same decisive mandate to us in the Assembly polls as they did in the Lok Sabha polls," he said.
"We will approach people for elections with a positive agenda," he said.