Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a membership drive and an outreach up to booth level voters to bag 2.5 crore votes to retain power after the Maharashtra Assembly election, the faction-ridden Congress party is yet to recover from its rout in the Lok Sabha election, and to appoint a new state president. The party also fears large scale defection to BJP and Shiv Sena in the run-up to the assembly poll.
Former leader of Opposition and veteran Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil has already joined BJP and has become a minister in the state cabinet. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' close confidant and state water resources minister Girish Mahajan has declared that leaders from Congress and Nationalist Congress Party are queuing up before official bungalow to join BJP.
Fadnavis has already asked party members not to remain complacent following a stunning performance in the Lok Sabha election. He will soon take out a month-long Vikas Yatra in the state while ministers have been asked to increase their tours in districts assigned to t