In a setback to the Maharashtra Congress days ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2019, Sujay Vikhe Patil, son of senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday.
Radha Krishna Vikhe Patil is the leader of opposition in the Maharashtra assembly and his son, Sujay, a practising neurosurgeon, was reportedly flustered over not being given a ticket by the Congress from the Ahmednagar seat which he wanted to contest. Ahmednagar is around 120 km from Pune and the seat was allocated to Congress ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the last elections.
As per reports, the Congress has completed the seat-sharing arrangement with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, keeping 26 seats and allotting 22 to NCP. However, the latter has reportedly spurned the request by Patil’s son.
In February, Maharashtra Congress Chief Ashok Chavan told news agency PTI that the senior Patil should persuade his son and that Sujay should know that his request is under the party’s consideration. “I have also suggested to his father that he should convince his son to back down if necessary,” he said.
PTI had reported that Sujay Patil had held a meeting with BJP leader Girish Mahajan in the previous week with speculations flying that he would join the party.
Sujay Patil had earlier said that he would fight independently if the Congress does not give a ticket.
However, his potential entry to the BJP was said to have been opposed by the party leaders at a party meeting on Tuesday with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The party leaders, reports say, had wanted Patil to work for the Bhartiya Janta Party before he got to contest the general elections on a BJP ticket.
Currently, it is Dilip Gandhi who is the sitting MP of the BJP from Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat.
