Nearly 19 months after he quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joined the Sharad Pawar-led party, the ruling NCP on Thursday rehabilitated former minister and senior party leader Eknath Khadse politically, by nominating him as its candidate for the forthcoming Maharashtra Legislative Council (MLC) polls, even as the Opposition BJP once again denied party ticket to its former minister Pankaja Munde to contest the MLC polls.
Sixty-nine-year-old Khadse, who had joined the NCP in October 2020 after having been virtually consigned to dog house for four-long years by the BJP, expressed happiness, as the NCP nominated him as one of the two candidates for the June 20, 2022 MLC polls. The NCP’s first candidate is the State Legislative Council’s current chairman Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar.
On his part, Khadse thanked the NCP leadership for nominating him to contest the MLC polls. " I would like to thank Sharad Pawar saheb. He has done me justice by nominating me to contest the MLC polls," he said.
Meanwhile, the rejection of a party ticket to Pankaja Munde, daughter of late senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde, came as a big disappointment to her and his supporters in the state. Her supporters staged a protest in front of the BJP office at Aurangabad hours after she was denied ticket by the BJP to contest the NLC polls.
Thursday was the second occasion in two years when she was denied a BJP ticket to contest the MLC polls. Earlier on May 8, 2020, she had been denied a party ticket in a similar fashion.
It may be recalled that Pankaja had created a stir in the BJP in December 2019, ahead of her late father Gopinath Munde’s 70th birth anniversary by joining hands with Khadse, announcing her resignation from the party’s core group and daring the party leadership to sack her from the party.
For the June 20 MLC polls for 1`0 srats, the NCP has put up two candidates – Khadse and Nimbalkar, while alliance partner Shiv Sena has nominated Sachin Ahir and Amasha Padvi as its candidates. The Congress, the third ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has fielded its former minister Chandrakant Handore and Mumbai party President Bhai Jagtap for the polls.
The over-ambitious Opposition BJP has put up as many as six candidates ---current leader of the Opposition in the Upper House Pravin Darekar, Ram Shinde, Shrikant Bharatiya, Uma Kapre and Prasad Lad, while it has offered its support to Independent MLA Sadabhau Khot.
The biennial polls to the 10 MLC seats are being held to fill up the the vacancies of retiring members including Naik-Nimbalkar, Ravindra Phatak, Sanjay Daund, Surjitsinh Thakur, Vinayak Mete, Darekar, Desai, Raote, Lad and Khot.
The nomination of Khadse comes as a big boost to the former veteran BJP leader, who had quit the party after being part of it 40-long years ever since it was formed way back in 1980.
Khadse was a minister in the Sena-BJP government (1995-1999). Subsequently he became a Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly.
He was a strong contender for the chief minister when the BJP came to power in the state in 2014. However, Devendra Fadnavis pipped him to the post.