Jalgaon strongman Khadse set for ‘ghar wapsi’ soon after 4 yrs, OBC leader wants countrywide job in BJP
Mumbai: Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Eknath Khadse, a tall chief from Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, is set to return to the Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) right after a hole of almost 4 a long time. According to a close aide of Khadse, who is at this time an MLC from the Nationalist Congress Bash (NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar) faction, the leader is eyeing a more countrywide role for himself in the BJP.
Khadse experienced exited the BJP to be part of the then undivided NCP in October 2020 immediately after remaining relegated to the sidelines by the point out leadership for virtually five a long time. When the previous BJP point out minister stop, he squarely blamed Devendra Fadnavis, now deputy CM, for his selection alleging Fadnavis had designed him “suffer mental torture.”


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Khadse on Saturday reportedly instructed some Marathi television channels that he will quickly be becoming a member of the BJP and that he is in talks with the party’s senior leadership. He, nevertheless, did not specify when his induction is possible to just take position.
Khadse did not reply to ThePrint’s phone calls. His earlier mentioned-stated near aide informed ThePrint that Khadse has held talks with the party’s senior leadership in Delhi and that they are keen on obtaining Khadse on board as it will “considerably strengthen” the BJP’s potential customers in northern Maharashtra, of which Jalgaon is a aspect. Khadse’s daughter-in-law Raksha Khadse is the BJP applicant from Raver in Jalgaon district. “Nathabhau (as Khadse is popularly recognised in Maharashtra) belongs to a group that has a considerable existence not only in Maharashtra, but also in states these kinds of as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and so on. When the BJP permit go of Nathabhau, the group was also disillusioned with the party. His return will ensure they vote for the BJP with a thumping majority,” the supply explained.
Khadse belongs to the Leva Patil group, an Other Backward Classes (OBC) sub caste. The group employed to rally previously driving the Congress, but shifted to the BJP in massive quantities with Khadse’s rise.
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‘National role’
Khadse stop the BJP just after slipping out with its state management, notably Fadnavis. When the BJP received the 2014 Maharashtra election, Khadse was among the the CM hopefuls but misplaced out to Fadnavis. Social gathering resources say, he was unwilling to perform beneath Fadnavis but was placated by assigning important portfolios and building him the de facto 2nd-in-command. He, nevertheless, was asked to resign from the cabinet in 2016 more than a sequence of graft charges.
Initial, Khadse confronted the heat when the Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested one of his aides for allegedly demanding Rs 30 crore as bribe in a land offer.Soon later on, an moral hacker claimed that Khadse was in touch with fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim.The closing nail in the coffin was a land acquire by Khadse’s spouse and son-in-legislation in Pune’s Bhosari industrial location, for which the previous revenue minister faced allegations of conflict of interest. He was sooner or later presented a thoroughly clean chit, but was stored out of the state cupboard. After Khadse’s resignation as minister, the BJP state management pushed Girish Mahajan, the water sources minister in the Fadnavis cabinet, as a significant chief from north Maharashtra. The growing prominence of Mahajan was a deliberate strategy to counter Khadse’s influence in the location and his aspirations.
With leaders these types of as Fadnavis and Mahajan still dominating the BJP’s political affairs in Maharashtra, Khadse, a 6-time former MLA from Jalgaon’s Muktainagar constituency, is searching at a a lot more nationwide role for himself this time. “He is hoping to get obligations in the party’s affairs at a nationwide level. The leadership is keen to get him on board. Also, with the break up in the NCP and Sharad Pawar only rising older, the get together does not have a great deal of a long run,” the supply close to Khadse reported. The NCP split in July past calendar year when Ajit Pawar walked out with a greater part of MLAs to be part of the ruling merge of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the BJP. According to the supply, the Jalgaon leader is pushing to get some bash obligation at the national stage.
Effect in northern Maharashtra
Khadse entered energetic politics as a BJP employee in the 1980s and aided the bash build a base in northern Maharashtra over the decades. He was a strong OBC deal with in the BJP, specially immediately after Maharashtra heavyweight and previous Union minister Gopinath Munde’s demise in 2014.He little by little strengthened the BJP’s hold more than Jalgaon — from very first encouraging the occasion achieve energy in the zilla parishad, then the district cooperative lender and the municipal company.Khadse is mentioned to have pretty much sowed the seeds for the BJP’s development in the northern location of Maharashtra, comprising the districts of Jalgaon, Nashik, Dhule and Nandurbar. The BJP, even so, has been going through hassle in Jalgaon. Sitting down MP Unmesh Patil still left the party to be a part of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) right after he was changed by MLC Smita Wagh in the seat. A section of the BJP cadre was also upset with Raksha Khadse’s candidature. Finding Eknath Khadse back on its side will quell some of these fissures, the social gathering feels.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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