NAGPUR: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called upon Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghachalak (chief) Mohan Bhagwat on Friday at the RSS headquarters at Mahal in a very lowkey manner and held talks with him in the meeting that reportedly lasted for 45-minutes. Fadnavis who participated in an event in Mumbai on Friday, July 5, to honour players from the World Cup-winning Indian cricket team flew to Nagpur immediately after and headed straight to the RSS headquarters upon arrival for the meeting with Bhagwat and several other key RSS officials.

Even as RSS functionaries remained tight-lipped about what was discussed during the meeting, it has been reliably confirmed that Fadnavis discussed the factors contributing to the recent Lok Sabha elections where the BJP did not achieve the expected success. Devendra Fadnavis had expressed his willingness to resign from his position as Deputy Chief Minister after the dismal performance pleading with the party to let him work for the organisation rather than spend time in the government, however the same was dismissed by the state BJP as well as the central leadership.

Local news reports say that during the meeting the leaders discussed ways in which there could be better coordination between the Sangh and the party which is referred to be its political arm, especially considering that the forthcoming state assembly elections were scheduled soon. Some reports also suggest that since the cabinet expansion in the state government is also on the cards, Fadnavis and Bhagwat have also discussed the same especially since it is widely speculated that new cabinet berths were expected to be allotted to MLAs from BJP’s new partner Nationalist Congress Party of the Ajit Pawar faction besides demand for accommodating more legislators from the other partner the Shiv Sena of the Eknath Shinde group.