BJP banking on welfare schemes to prepare ground: Maha leader

Mumbai: With Maharashtra polls just a little over two years away, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will rely heavily on welfare politics to prepare the ground for the general and state elections, a senior party leader said. “With a very short period at our hand, the Maharashtra BJP unit has almost finalized a plan to prioritize such schemes and policies over any big-ticket project,” the senior leader said. Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had indicated that the new government, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, will focus on covering more population under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in urban areas. “Our review found out that only 16% of urban beneficiaries have built their homes 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.