2 ministers among 5 bigwigs left out of BJP Maha poll list

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dropped five senior party leaders from its list of candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dropped five senior party leaders from its list of candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls.

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Higher education minister Vinod Tawde, power minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, former ministers Eknath Khadse, Prakash Mehta (both six-term legislators) and party whip in the Assembly Raj Purohit did not figure on the final list of 164 candidates released by the BJP on Friday.

While Khadse’s daughter, Rohini, was given party candidature from her father’s Muktainagar seat in north Maharashtra; the other four were replaced with local leaders. In Mumbai, Tawde was replaced by Mumbai BJP general secretary Sunil Rane for the Borivli constituency; Mehta’s Ghatkopar East constituency went to party corporator and real estate developer Parag Shah; and in Colaba, the BJP fielded former NCP leader Rahul Narvekar instead of Purohit.

The party fielded former Nagpur district president Tekchand Sawarkar instead of Bawankule from the Kamptee (in Nagpur) constituency.

The decision to drop these frontline leaders is being attributed to the BJP’s central leadership and is seen as a signal that performance as well as behaviour of state leaders will be reviewed.

The unease over dropping senior leaders, however, was felt in their constituencies — clashes in Ghatkopar and protest in Borivli.

Mehta’s supporters blocked and vandalised the car of the party’s official candidate, Shah; Tawde’s party supporters protested outside Borivli office of BJP saying Rane will not be accepted as the candidate.

Rane, like Tawde, hails from Konkan and is a Maratha leader. He is the son of former state BJP minister Datta Rane.

Shah, who got into the BJP through Mehta, was one of the candidates for the 2017 civic polls. He made news then as the richest candidate, with assets worth ₹690 crore.

Meanwhile, Narvekar is the son-in-law of senior NCP leader and chairman of the legislative Council Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, who had allegedly been in talks with the BJP. Nimbalkar has, however, since then announced that he will stay with the NCP.

The infighting, however, is unlikely to have a poll impact in these BJP stronghold constituencies.

“I am introspecting over why I was not given a ticket from Borivli; the party will also think about this. But, this is not the time to think about who or what has gone wrong. As an RSS and ABVP worker, the culture instilled in me says nation comes first, then the party and then self. Both chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and state chief Chandrakant Patil tried to get a ticket for me, but ultimately these decisions are made by the party’s high command,” said Tawde. “If someone has given wrong reports or news about me, then it will have to be discussed and clarified,” Tawde said.

Mehta said, “I don’t know why I have been dropped and I haven’t even asked the reason. I will seek the answer and then share it with my party workers. It is natural that they are emotional and agitated as we have been working together in this constituency for more than 30 years.”

Like Tawde and Mehta, Khadse also accepted the party’s decision to give candidature to his daughter.

“Instead of having someone from outside represent us, it is better that one of us gets a chance. I have always accepted even the bitter decisions of the party leadership. When they asked me to resign, I resigned. So let’s get to work and ensure an unprecedented win from our constituency,” Khadse told his supporters at his home in Muktainagar.

Similarly, despite day-long drama over his candidature on Friday, Bawankule claimed he was neither upset nor being sidelined. His wife, Jyoti, even made a last-ditch attempt to file her candidature as an independent late afternoon.

“I had been told by the party leadership that I should focus on all seats in eastern Vidarbha instead of being caught in one election. And, I’ll focus on that. My wife filed her nomination because the party asked her to, but then it was decided to opt for a local leader,” said Bawankule, a three-term legislator, seen to be close to Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

Both Khadse and Mehta had faced allegations of corruption; while the former was made to resign as minister in 2016, the latter was dropped from the cabinet in the 2019 reshuffle. It is not clear what went against Tawde, seen as one of the frontline leaders of the BJP who was close to Gadkari until recently. He had, however, been steadily sidelined in the party in the recent years. He lost his medical education portfolio to Fadnavis’s close aide and minister Girish Mahajan and this year lost his school education portfolio to party colleague Ashish Shelar. There are speculations that there could have been complaints during his stint as the education minister.

Similarly, it is not clear why Bawankule’s wings have been clipped. Seen to be close to Gadkari, Bawankule had over the past five years worked closely with Fadnavis. In Colaba, the party was looking for a fresh face. Purohit’s name had figured in a sting operation where he was heard making comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah’s style of functioning in 2015. While he had claimed the video was doctored, this may have gone against Purohit.