Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party leader Eknath Khadse said he was thinking about quitting the party after watching it make “political blunders” in the state, The Indian Express reported on Thursday. Khadse claimed that the BJP would have won 20-25 additional seats in the Assembly elections held last month, if he and some other party leaders had actively campaigned.
“I have an offer from Shiv Sena,” he said. “Even I am seriously beginning to wonder if I should accept it. After all, it makes me wonder what is the point of staying in the party which has hurt the sentiments of people by compromising on principles.”
Khadse did not any name any leader at the state-level or the Centre, but said that the party’s functioning had resulted in a lot of “anguish and embarrassment”.
The BJP leader also expressed disappointment over the party’s decision to ally with Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar, who quit three days after he was sworn in after the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition approached the Supreme Court over the state government’s formation. Khadse said that for a leader like him, associated with the Jana Sangh and the BJP for over four decades, allying with Pawar was the biggest political mistake.
The BJP leader criticised the early morning swearing-in of former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his deputy Pawar on Saturday. He maintained that there was nothing wrong constitutionally, but questioned the reason behind “such an immature adventure”.
Khadse added that it seemed that party’s earlier claims of possessing evidence against Pawar was “dumped in scrap”, according to PTI. “One decision demolished the organisation’s goodwill amongst the people,” he said. “The BJP’s crusade against corruption which earned them a huge public mandate was lost with this one stroke.”
In 2016, Khadse resigned as the former state revenue minister over charges of corruption involving a land scandal in Pune, Maharashtra.
Khadse said the BJP lost nearly 18-25 seats due to infighting in the state that resulted in the party’s inability to form the state government. The former state minister said the organisation should have consulted with experienced party leaders for ticket distribution and campaign. The decision to not give tickets to leaders like Chandraskhekhar Bawankule and Vinod Tawde did not go down well among the Other Backward Classes, he said.
An unidentified senior party worker from Vidharbha said that all the decisions on government formation was a collective call of the party. The party member said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah had agreed to the plan to tie up with Pawar. The responsibility should be taken collectively by all the leaders, the member added.
Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray will be sworn in on Thursday evening, for which invitations have gone out to politicians across party lines, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
The new Shiv Sena-led government will have only one deputy chief minister from the Nationalist Congress Party while the Assembly Speaker will be from the Congress. A few legislators from the Sena, the NCP, and the Congress will also take oath along with Thackeray.
The political imbroglio in Maharashtra
The BJP had won 105 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the results of which were announced on October 24. The Shiv Sena, which was in an alliance with the BJP, won 56 seats. Despite having enough seats to form a government together, the two allies bickered over power-sharing – the chief minister’s post and Cabinet portfolios – resulting in the Shiv Sena starting negotiations with the ideologically different Congress and NCP instead.
With no outcome in sight then, the Centre imposed President’s Rule in Maharashtra on November 12. The Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP continued negotiations to form an alliance, and on Friday evening, Sharad Pawar announced that Uddhav Thackeray had been unanimously chosen to head the new government. Thus, the oath-taking ceremony of Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar early on Saturday came as a surprise.
The same day, the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress filed a petition in the Supreme Court against Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s decision to invite the BJP to form the government. On Sunday, the top court asked for the letters of support on the basis of which the governor took action. After these letters were submitted to the court on Monday, it reserved its verdict in the case, for Tuesday morning. The next day, the court ordered a floor test before 5 pm on Wednesday.
Hours after the Supreme Court verdict, Fadnavis resigned as the chief minister and Ajit Pawar as his deputy. Fadnavis conceded that the BJP had failed to form the government. Ajit Pawar confirmed on Wednesday that he was still with the Nationalist Congress Party.
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