Maharashtra: BJP's show of strength? Pankaja Munde calls for meeting of her supporters on December 12

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA in Maharashtra Pankaja Munde has called for a meeting of her supporters from across the state on December 12, the birth anniversary of her late father and former Union Minister Gopinath Munde, to discuss the future course of action. The young leader's confident call is now being interpreted by analysts as a massive show of strength in the aftermath of the crisis regarding government formation in the state.

Pankaja on Sunday put up a Facebook post stating that she intended to meet her supporters as, after her defeat in the recently conducted assembly elections in Maharashtra, she had received a large number of phone calls and messages from her supporters who wanted to meet her but couldn't due to the political situation.

The Parli constituency seat witnessed a contest of prestige in the Maharashtra assembly polls since Pankaja, a minister in the previous state government led by Devendra Fadnavis, was pitted against her cousin and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Dhananjay Munde. She lost by a margin of nearly 30,000 votes. The Munde siblings' split is well-known to any close observer of the Maharashtra political stage.

It may be recalled that after a month-long intense political drama, the ''Maha Vikas Aghadi'' alliance government of Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress was formed recently with Uddhav Thackeray at the helm.

All this comes at a time when there are reports of growing internal rift within the saffron party over the way it aligned with NCP's Ajit Pawar and formed the government with Devendra Fadnavis taking over as CM for a second time and its subsequent exit three days later, which is believed to have tarnished the BJP's image.

Former Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse has already taken a dig at former CM Devendra Fadnavis over his failure to handle the alliance with Shiv Sena and unsuccessfully forming the government with NCP which lasted just 80 hours.