Amid the growing rift between senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Eknath Khadse and Chandrakant Patil, Maharashtra Congress President Balasaheb Thorat on Wednesday gave Khadse an open offer to switch sides.
Latching on to the tussle between sulking leader Eknath Khadse and BJP’s state leadership, Maharashtra Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said that the senior BJP leader was welcome in Congress provided that he accepts party’s ideology.
Eknath Khadse earlier expressed his disappointment with the state leadership including Devendra Fadnavis and Chandrakant Patil for denying him a ticket for the Maharashtra Legislative Council (MLC) elections which are scheduled to be held on May 21 on nine vacancies.
The internal rift between the two leaders from the BJP became public after Chandrakant Patil, in an open attack, told Eknath Khadse that being a senior leader he can be a consultant to the party’s current leadership.
“Eknath Khadse is a senior leader of Maharashtra BJP. He can serve as a consultant to the party’s current leadership,” Patil said while speaking to a Marathi news channel.
Patil’s remarks came after Khadse alleged that denying him the council ticket was a conspiracy by certain leaders while questioning the role of Chandrakant Patil in expanding the BJP in Maharashtra.
“This is a conspiracy against people like me who had served the party for 40 years and other by some 4-5 state leaders who are misleading central leadership,” Eknath Khadse said while stating that he was trying to contact Devendra Fadnavis to know why he and others were denied nominations.
The BJP fielded four candidates for the MLC polls and denied ticket to Eknath Khadse and other senior party leaders including Pankaja Munde, Vinod Tawde and Chandrashekar Bawankule.
Khadse has been sulking after he was made to resign as the Revenue Minister over corruption allegations in 2016. Khadse had also intended to contest the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls from his home ground Muktainagar in Jalgaon district but the BJP fielded his daughter Rohini Khadse instead.
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