Khadse disappointed as the BJP ignores him

A senior and grass root leader of the Bharatiya Janta Party, who has been a loyalist from its founding days, Eknath Khadse, the former revenue minister is one dejected person. After he was forced to resign as two scams broke out. Despite a clean chit, Khadse still has no chance of returning to the Maharashtra cabinet.

Khadse has been completely ignored by the state leadership of the party. The mass leader has good relations with the top leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Khadse also attends core committee meetings with leaders from Delhi and state, has lost hopes his party inducted in the state cabinet.

Khadse spoke to Free Press Journal, in his newly constructed farm house located on Dhule-Nagpur National Highway at Muktainagar in Jalgaon district. He questioned the reasons for being ignored by Devendra Fadnavis, the chief minister. "What was my mistake? Have had been I involved in corruption? Had I purchased huge lands bypassing the rules of the government?" asked Khadse.

Khadse says it pinches the leaders of both RSS and BJP though aware of his condition do not acknowledge injustice has been done to him, "The RSS leaders just visited this very farmhouse last week. Another team of around 40 members from RSS stayed here last month. I have very good relations with the RSS leadership. I am in constant contact with the central leaders. However, nobody openly speak of injustice meted out to me," said Khadse defeated against party internal politics while staring at the sky.

Forty years ago, Khadse became the Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat. Then, Khadse was the only BJP worker in entire Jalgaon district. Pratibhatai Patil, the then minister of Congress filed police complaints against Khadse to defeat him from the political fray. He went to jail four times and is the leader who never lost in any election in past 40 years. He has been elected to every local body including District Cooperative Bank, Agriculture Produce Market Committee, Zilla Parishad in Jalgaon district.He was the leader who exposed the scams in cooperative Bank sector, when he was the Leader of Opposition in the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party rule.

Today, Khadse's political life has been put on hold.

Khadse recalled memories and said he was against the proposal to appoint Devendra Fadnavis as the state president of the party. "Even Gopinath Munde at that time was against his appointment. Fadnavis was never from Munde camp but he managed Munde and pressurised me to propose his name to Rajnath Singh, the then national president of the party." Rest is history as they say, said a disappointed Khadse.

Khadse added Munde had warned him of Fadnavis and had said he was not likely to remain loyal to Khadse once he became powerful. "I will not say it was my mistake. The Congress-NCP government did not dare to dig up issues or scams against me. However, within 14 months of BJP government, I have been portrayed as the main villain," Khadse could not hide his sentiment.

"I was hopeful the first year after my resignation. Now, I have lost all hopes of this government and frankly speaking, now I will not be happy to work in this government," said Khadse.