Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday appointed MLC Chandrashekhar Bawankule as its Maharashtra unit President and MLA Ashish Shelar as its Mumbai chity chief. Bawankule, an OBC by caste replaced Chandrakant Patil, a Maratha, as he became the Minister in the newly sworn cabinet of the CM Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government.
Bawankule is a leader from Nagpur and is said to be a close aide of Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari.
Meanwhile, Shelar, who is a Maratha by caste replaced Mangal Prabhat Lodha as the Mumbai unit president. Similarly like Patil, Lodha too became minister in the recently sworn cabinet of the BJP-Shiv Sena government in the state.
It also being said that Bawankule's appointment is saffron party's bid to consolidate the votes of backward community in Maharashtra as it has already started preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
As per a statement by BJP President J. P. Nadda, both appointments are made with immediate effect, and come ahead of the imminent elections to various civic bodies in the state.
The rejig in Mahrashtra BJP comes days after CM Shinde-led cabinet expanded with the induction of 18 new ministers on Tuesday. Shinde has inducted nine ministers from his group and 9 from the ally Bharatiya Janata Party, over 40 days after the duo took over on June 30 after unseating erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by former CM Uddhav Thackeray.
BJP MLAs sworn-in as ministers are Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan, Vijaykumar Gavit, Suresh Khade, Atul Save, Ravindra Chavan and Mangal Prabhat Lodha.