As the ruling Congress initiated efforts to ensure unopposed victory for its candidate Rajani Patil in the October 4 by-polls, the Opposition BJP is understood to have offered to support the Congress candidate on a condition that in lieu of its support, the MVA Government would withdraw the suspension of 12 of its MLAs who were acted against when they “abused” and “misbehaved” with the presiding officer inside and outside the State Assembly in July this year.
Informed sources in the Congress said on Thursday that the BJP made the offer of conditional support when State Congress president Nana Patole and senior state Congress minister Balasaheb Thorat met former chief minister and current leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis at the latter’s residence.
It may be recalled that on July 5, as many as 12 BJP MLAs were suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly on Monday for a period of one year “abusing” and “misbehaving” with the presiding officer inside and outside the House. The suspension of the 12 MLAs came after the Opposition created a ruckus over the OBC reservations issue and alleged that Speaker-in-Chair Bhaskar Jadhav did not give them enough time to speak.
Talking to media persons after his and Patole’s meeting with Fadnavis on Thursday afternoon, Thorat however said that no discussion relating to the BJP’s conditional support to the Congress candidate had taken place at the meeting.
“We have spoken to Fadnavis about the tradition prevailing in the state for very many years was that whenever there is Rajy Sabha by-election for one candidate, political parties cooperate with one another to ensured unopposed election of a candidate. The BJP has not come out with any counter proposal or accepted our request. Fadnavis told us that he would place our request before the party’s state core committee which would take a call in the matter,” Thorat said.
The by-election to one RS seat from Maharashtra has been necessitated by the untimely demise of sitting Congress member Rajeev Satav who died because of Covid-19 complications on May 16 this year.
The Congress high command had on Monday nominated party’s former MP and AICC general secretary Rajani Patil as its candidate for the by-election to the one Rajya Sabha seat scheduled for October 4,
The Congress high command has chosen Rajani Patil, who is a Gandhi-Nehru family loyalist, as the party candidate for the RS by-polls, ahead of Rajeev’s widow Pradnya Satav, who had lobbied with the party leadership for nomination, veteran party leader Sushilkumar Shinde, party general secretary Mukul Wasnik himself, former Rajasthan state in charge Avinash Pande, former MP Rajiv Shukla and former union minister Milind Deora.
Sixty-two-year-old Rajanitai – as she is known in the state political circles -- is currently the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir. She was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha in 2013. In 1996, Patil had won the Beed Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra for the Congress. She had replaced AICC general secretary and former Maharashtra chief minister Shushil Kumar Shinde as the in-charge for Himachal in September, 2018 Patil enjoys close rapport with the Gandhi family, especially party president Sonia Gandhi