Mumbai: Staunch Congress loyalist and former union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday sent shockwaves in political circles when he alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had made overtures, asking him and his daughter, Praniti, to join the saffron fold. Praniti is the party’s sitting legislator from Solapur.
Shinde said a top BJP leader had approached him a few weeks ago, but refused to name the person. However, mediapersons speculated that it may have been Chandrakant Patil. However, when Patil was asked, he refused to comment.
Shinde’s revelations came a day after he filed his nomination papers and he said, “BJP had first tried to woo my daughter with many offers, but she remained firm. Later, in the wake of the current general elections, a couple of top BJP leaders tried to pursue me as well, but I firmly refused.”
The leader who is said to be the first person to coin the term ‘Hindu terror’, for right-wing Hindu outfits that were reportedly behind the 2008 Malegaon blasts and other similar cases, was not one people would imagine the right-wing BJP would have pursued.
Shinde clarified that both he and his daughter would remain in the Congress till the end of their lives. “My daughter and I have Congress blood in our veins. There is no question of us leaving our party,” said Shinde. The BJP has fielded Jai Siddheshwar Shivacharya, a religious guru from the Lingayat community, which could be a deciding factor in the Solapur LS constituency.
Having fielded Shivacharya, BJP hopes to win the seat with the support of Lingayat, Padmashali, Dhangar and Maratha communities, said a BJP leaders. He added that there were more than 3.5 lakh supporters of the Swami among the Lingayats; around 3.5 lakh Dhangars and Marathas too were expected to vote in his favour.
Prakash Ambedkar, chief of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), is banking on one lakh Muslims and 70,000 Dalits who constitute the overall population. “The triangular fight in Solapur has shifted its focus from development work to caste issues,” said Sachin Gadekar, an observer from Solapur.
