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Lok Sabha elections 2019: Maharashtra Congress leader’s son joins BJP, could get seat in Ahmednagar
The Congress was left red-faced on Tuesday, after Sujay Vikhe Patil, the son of Opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and state president Raosaheb Danve.
The Congress was left red-faced on Tuesday, after Sujay Vikhe Patil, the son of Opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and state president Raosaheb Danve.
Sujay Vikhe Patil, a neurosurgeon, is now tipped to be BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from the Ahmednagar constituency in Western Maharashtra, instead of the sitting MP Dilip Gandhi.
A formal decision on this has not been announced.
“My father tried earnestly to get the Ahmednagar seat for the Congress, but could not succeed,” Sujay Vikhe Patil said/ “So, last week, I told him I will take a decision independently.”
The Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat is with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), whose chief Sharad Pawar refused to give it to the Congress. Sujay Vikhe Patil said he had not spoken to his father for two days before he finally decided to join the BJP.
“I took this decision against the wishes of my father,” he said, and added that he was “humbled by the respect” he got from the BJP and CM Fadnavis.
“I took the decision to join BJP after recent decisions made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, specifically about the air strikes after the Pulwama attack. The country needs his kind of leadership,” he said. Fadnavis said Sujay Vikhe Patil’s entry was a victory for the BJP’s top leadership.
“Dr Sujay Vikhe Patil comes from a long-standing political tradition, but he kept that legacy aside to join the BJP and work under PM Modi’s leadership. We have decided the Maharashtra election committee will recommend his name to the Parliamentary Board for Ahmednagar,’’ Fadnavis said.
Sujay Vikhe Patil’s move is likely to cast a shadow over his father, who may resign as Leader of Opposition in the Assembly. A senior BJP leader also indicated the party would actively poach candidates like Sujay Vikhe Patil, if it improves their electoral chances especially in Western Maharashtra, which has been a bastion of the Congress-NCP alliance. “We have been in touch with some influential families who are keen to join the party. Some names will come out when the time is right,’’ said a BJP minister.
Just ahead of Sujay Vikhe Patil’s induction, NCP MP Vijaysinh Mohite Patil’s son Ranjitsinh also met BJP minister and CM aide Girish Mahajan.
Vijaysinh Mohite Patil is the sitting MP from Madha, also in Western Maharashtra, where Pawar was supposed to contest from, before he pulled out. Ranjitsinh, however, claimed he met Mahajan over his sugar factory, but there was speculation that the Mohite Patils were flexing muscles in a bid to get candidature of the Madha seat.
By evening, Pawar had announced Vijaysinh would contest from the Madha seat. On Sujay Vikhe Patil’s decision to join BJP, Sharad Pawar said, “Sujay has left a party to join another and was insisting for a certain seat. It is not the responsibility of others to fulfil his childish demands. I can give in to a child’s demand from my family but why should I give in to the demand of other’s children? It is up to the other (Congress) party to give in to such demands.”
Meanwhile, Sujay Vikhe Patil’s mother, Shalini, told a news channel from their hometown in Pravara, Ahmednagar, that her son took the decision independently.
“There was no discussion with me on this. There is freedom in our family to take decisions independently. He is a neurosurgeon and capable of taking his own decision. Even my father-in-law (Balasaheb Vikhe Patil) did not force any decisions on my husband,” she said.
