Public spat within BJP over legislative Council polls on

After Khadse, Shinde takes a jibe over party’s candidate selection

Amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, public spat within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over nomination of candidates to the legislative Council has continued. After senior party leader Eknath Khadse’s allegations that the state leadership betrayed him and other Other Backward Class (OBC) leaders, which was followed by a rebuttal by party state unit chief Chandrakant Patil, another BJP leader, Ram Shinde, has expressed unhappiness about the way candidates were nominated.

Shinde, former BJP minister and a ‘Dhangar’ or shepherd community leader, took to microblogging platform Twitter on Wednesday to taunt Patil and his former colleague Pankaja Munde. He tweeted, “In the backdrop of the legislative Council polls, BJP state chief Chandrakant Patil tweeted: Aspirants and leaders desiring legislative Council nomination will understand and learn. Pankaja Munde seems to have studied this quickly in two days (That’s why Ramesh Karad got nomination). Others and I could not manage it.”

Shinde’s jibe was aimed at state BJP’S last minute decision to switch one of the four candidates wherein the party dropped Dr Ajit Gopchade and gave Karad, considered close to Munde, a ticket instead. The move has raised several eyebrows within the party. As opposed to Munde, Shinde is considered to be close to former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

On Thursday, Shinde said, “I was keen on nomination to legislative Council, and as I have tweeted, I failed to study well while Munde managed to get a nomination for Karad.” He indicated that Munde used pressure tactics to get the ticket as she had earlier tweeted that she was learning to start from zero again, as a signal to party leadership. Munde did not comment.

BJP state unit chief Chandrakant Patil has made it clear that the Central leadership was opposed to giving Council poll tickets to anyone who had lost state Assembly polls. Both Munde and Shinde had lost in the Assembly polls held in October.

Earlier, Khadse had slammed Fadnavis for sidelining OBC leaders like him and stabbing him in the back. Patil had then retorted saying Khadse had forgotten the many opportunities that the party gave him, including chance to contest Assembly polls seven times, two term MP nomination to his daughter-in-law, an MLC nomination to his son earlier, nomination to his daughter to contest 2019 Assembly polls etc.