Nagpur: As the first week of the 14-day winter session of the Assembly ended, there is a growing discontent among the former Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLAs and MPs, who have switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last three-four years.
While the resignation of BJP MP Nana Patole is first such clear indication, the list may grow in the coming months, said a senior Congress leader. Mr. Patole is set to show his strength in Bhandara-Gondia by organising a yatra.
BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh created a stir on the eve of the winter session by raising the demand of a separate statehood for Vidarbha, a demand which the BJP seems to have sidelined for now.
Not only did Mr. Deshmukh, whose father Ranjit Deshmukh was a former Maharashtra Congress chief, write a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, but also put up banners with the demand on roads of Nagpur and adjoining areas.
“I am not doing any anti-BJP activity,” Mr. Deshmukh said.
The buzz in Nagpur, however, tells a different story. A senior Congress MLA from Vidarbha said the former Congressman will come back to his original home.
Apart from him, the Congress expects ‘ghar-wapsi’ of at least four more BJP leaders from Vidarbha. “Some cards are better kept hidden at present. Let the Gujarat results come in; then the real game will begin,” the Congress leader said.
Not only in Vidarbha, former NCP leader Sanjay Kakde from Pune, who was elected to the Rajy Sabha from the BJP, kicked up a row two days ago by predicting a Congress victory in Gujarat.
A letter, allegedly from an unknown activist of Mr. Kakde has been making rounds in Pune’s political circles slamming the BJP MLAs of the city for neglecting the MP. The Congress has started reaching out to many of its leaders who ditched the party for the BJP before 2014.
The BJP on the other hand blames the chaos in farm loan waiver scheme and rural distress for these developments.
“Unrest in rural Vidarbha is the main reason for this disturbance. We need to undertake course correction immediately before it could damage the BJP in the next poll,” a former minister and senior BJP leader said.
Meanwhile, sidelining BJP loyalists and putting former NCP leader Prasad Lad in the Council has not gone down well. The talk in the BJP corridors is that two senior most BJP leaders did not vote for Mr. Lad in the recent polls.
