"Will clean sweep in first phase of Vidarbha": Maharashtra Dy CM Fadnavis

Nagpur (Maharashtra) [India], March 26 (ANI): Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Monday that the BJP will win all the seats in Lok Sabha polls in the first phase in Vidarbha.
"The BJP is seeing favourable results in the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls in Vidarbha. We are seeing positivity among people due to the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In Nagpur, a stalwart like Nitin Gadkari is contesting elections," said Devendra Fadnavis.
"In the last four years, we have made preparations at the booth level and have tried to reach the last section. On that basis, we will do a clean sweep and will win all the seats in Lok Sabha polls in the first phase in Vidarbha," said the BJP leader.
There are 48 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra. The elections will be held in five phases. 5 seats in Phase 1 (April 19), 8 seats in Phase 2 (April 26), and 11 seats each in Phase 3 (May 7) and 4 (May 13). The remaining 13 seats will go to the polls in Phase 5 (May 20).
Meanwhile, Maharashtra's senior Congress leader and Umred MLA Raju Parwe on Sunday joined Shiv Sena in the presence of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar.
Parwe resigned from Congress earlier in the day and later joined Shiv Sena at 'Varsha', the official residence of CM Shinde.
Parve won the Umred seat in Nagpur district on a Congress ticket in the 2019 assembly elections.
Amid the swiftly changing allegiances among political leaders in Maharashtra, Bajrang Sonawane, previously aligned with Ajit Pawar's faction within the NCP, made a significant move by joining Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Wednesday.
Bajrang Sonwane, who hails from Beed district, Maharashtra, is considered to be the loyalist of Ajit Pawar and Dhananjay Munde after the split in the NCP last year. When Ajit Pawar joined the Eknath Shinde-led Grand Alliance government, Bajarang Sonwane came along with Ajit Pawar while he was the president of the NCP from Beed district.
Bajrang Sonawane had also contested against Pritam Munde in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Beed seat and had given a strong fight in the election.
The BJP has already announced the candidature of Pankaja Munde for the Beed Lok Sabha seat, replacing her younger sister, MP Pritam Munde, who won the seat in 2019.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 23 out of 25 contested seats, while the undivided Shiv Sena secured 18 out of 23 seats.
The undivided NCP, part of the opposition alliance, contested 19 seats and won four. Following the split in 2022, the Shiv Sena, which had earlier formed a coalition government with the Congress and NCP, saw Eknath Shinde align with the BJP. (ANI)