Sulking Khadse meets Mahajan, Fadnavis in Jalgaon, BJP retains the district council

Days after senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Eknath Khadse blamed former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and former minister Girish Mahajan for having conspired to deny him a ticket for the state Assembly polls, the rivals seemed to have reached a compromise.

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Mahajan said the party retained the Jalgaon district council on Friday as he and Khadse, both of whom hail from the district, worked together. Fadnavis also went to Jalgaon and had a breakfast meeting with Khadse on Friday morning.

“All three [Khadse, Mahajan and Fadnavis] held a meeting in the morning. Khadse and Mahajan even travelled together after this meeting. The party leadership had asked all the leaders to ensure that the district council is not lost because of their internal bickering. Khadse has also been asked to stop public complaints,” said a senior BJP leader.

It is not clear whether Khadse will be reinstated into the party’s core group, but for now it seems that he will be staying in the BJP.

Khadse had met both Shiv Sena supremo and chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar last month, indicating that he was thinking of quitting the BJP.

The senior BJP leader has, through various platforms, expressed his displeasure over being sidelined in the BJP. On Thursday, he had openly blamed Fadnavis and Mahajan for trying to end his political career by denying him a ticket to contest the state Assembly polls.

After the Jalgaon district council polls, Mahajan said that both Khadse and he had worked together to ensure the Jalgaon council stayed with the party. Mahajan also signalled that a compromise was on the cards. He said, “We will work on our misunderstandings.”

However, Khadse said that these meetings pertained to “only district council polls” and there was no other discussion with these two leaders. “Fadnavis, as the leader of the Opposition, came to Jalgaon to discuss the district council polls. We will ensure that BJP continues to win here in Jalgaon…But, nothing else was discussed beyond the local polls in these meetings,” said Khadse.

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