The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been desperate to counter the allegations made by its senior leader Eknath Khadse. Defending the central leadership’s decision to deny him a ticket, it questioned how all the political benefits could be given to one family.
Speaking with the media on Tuesday, Khadse claimed that he has been working with the BJP since Jan Sangh days and had agitated against the emergency. Countering this claim, BJP state president Chandrakant Patil claimed that Khadse was originally a Congress worker who joined BJP in 1987-88. “When the emergency was clamped in the country, Khadse was in Congress. How did he then agitate against it?” wondered Patil.
Replying to Khadse’s comment that BJP has backstabbed him, Patil said, “In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP Parliamentary Party had given candidature to Haribhau Jawale for the Raver constituency. But you denied him a ticket and gave that ticket to your daughter-in-law Raksha Khadse. When BJP finalised the ticket of Gurumukh Jagwani for the Legislative Council election, you denied him a ticket and gave that ticket to your son Nikhil. Was this not backstabbing Jawale and Jagwani?”
“He was a party legislator for more than seven times and was made minister twice. His daughter got a party candidature to contest the election in his place from Muktainagar. His daughter-in-law won the Raver Lok Sabha twice on BJP ticket. His son was a candidate in the Legislative Council election. His daughter was the chairperson of the District Cooperative Bank. His wife Manda Khadse is the chairperson of Mahanand Dairy. The central leadership might have thought that how long can BJP give all the political benefits to one Khadse family?” he pointed.
Patil points finger at central leadership
When asked why Khadse was denied a ticket, he pointed a finger at the central leadership for it.
“Devendra Fadnavis and I have done our best. We recommended the names of Khadse, Pankaja Munde and Chandrashekhar Bawankule. But the central leadership changed these names. I do not know on what ground exactly these names were changed. But I think, they might want Khadse now to be in the role of Margadarshak (guide),” Patil claimed.
Khadse, on Tuesday, discussed this issue with Fadnavis on phone. “He has access to central leadership and he can directly talk to them,” he advised. “Expressing differences of opinion and internal problems in the public is against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP policy,” he taunted Khadse.
