By Aditya Waghmare
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Oct 22 (PTI) Sreejaya, daughter of BJP MP Ashok Chavan and party's nominee from Maharashtra's Bhokar assembly seat, has said the opposition's "false propaganda" will not work this time and asserted the government has done a lot to address issued faced by Marathas.
Sreejaya Chavan, who was earlier in the Congress and shifted her political loyalty to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when her father, a former CM, joined the saffron outfit in February this year, was among 99 candidates named by the party in its first list for the November 20 state assembly polls.
A law degree holder, Sreejaya Chavan is making her electoral debut from the home turf of Bhokar in Nanded district in the Marathwada region.
In an interview with PTI on Tuesday, she said her campaign team is cautioning voters about the "false propaganda" spread by the opposition during the recent Lok Sabha elections, which saw the BJP putting up an underwhelming performance and winning just nine seats in Maharashtra.
The ruling Mahayuti has done a lot to address the issues faced by the Maratha community, which is agitating for reservation in jobs and education, and people from Bhokar are benefitting from welfare measures taken by the state government, she noted.
During the interview, Sreejaya Chavan spoke at length about her campaign in Bhokar (represented by her mother Amita and father Ashok Chavan in the past) and her plans for the constituency if she is elected.
She also touched upon the emotive issue of Maratha reservation which is widely believed to have contributed in the BJP's poor showing in the Lok Sabha polls, especially in Marathwada, the ground zero of the quota stir spearheaded by Manoj Jarange.
"We are telling people in villages about the false propaganda unleased by the opposition during the Lok Sabha polls. So many issues were raised against certain sections of society. People are intelligent enough, and they understand these propagandas will not work anymore," she said when asked about campaign issues and what her team is doing to avoid a repeat of loss in the Lok Sabha polls.
"The Mahayuti government has given a 10 per cent reservation to the Maratha community (in government jobs and education). Many youths from Bhokar have already benefitted with provisions made for Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC) by the government," Sreejaya Chavan insisted.
She dwelt on her political journey from the Congress to the BJP and her new role as the saffron party's candidate from Bhokar.
"Our family has been working for long for the people in the constituency. After the switch over, ideological and thought process may differ a little bit, but we have always given preference to the people in our constituency. I am giving time to address demands of people in both rural and urban areas," she maintained.
Asked about the issues before the voters, Sreejaya Chavan said a lot of development work has taken place in Bhokar with regard to basic infrastructure.
"I wish to work for better education, raising standard of living and creating more employment opportunities. These will always remain my focus areas," the BJP candidate emphasised.
"Female empowerment has been a strong point of the Bhokar constituency. There are a large number of self-help groups and we can empower them," she said.
Despite Ashok Chavan, now a Rajya Sabha MP, joining the BJP, the party lost the Nanded Lok Sabha seat to the Congress earlier this year. BJP candidate Pratap Patil Chikhlikar could not leave an impact even in the Bhokar assembly segment in terms of votes.
Asked how tough her maiden assembly contest is going to be for her, the BJP member said voters view parliamentary and state polls differently.
"The Lok Sabha polls were a country-wide elections. People had a different mindset then, now they have a different one. People always consider someone of their own constituency. New schemes have been launched by the Centre and the state...people are happy new things are coming up," she said.
Sreejaya Chavan had participated in the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi when she was in that party.
Asked about her journey from participating in a Congress yatra to becoming a BJP candidate, she said, "I have learned a lot from both the parties. I take it as a blessing that I got to learn a lot from both the parties."