BJP MLA Abhay Patil has clarified that a video of him purportedly indicating that he will not campaign actively for party candidate in Belagavi Jagadish Shettar is fabricated and unrelated.
“Some people are sharing a video clip of mine that seems to show that I will sit at home and not work for the party. But that is fabricated and dated. It is a very old video shot when I was Hirebagewadi MLA. I was describing the growth of the BJP in the district to my friends when the video was shot. I had told my friends that earlier, I had to work hard for the party. But now, I only need to sit quietly at home as the party has grown in strength and the cadre are self-motivated. Some miscreants have not only edited some portions of the video, but are also sharing it out of context,” he told reporters in Belagavi on Friday.
Mr. Patil was among the leaders who had requested the BJP senior leaders to reconsider the selection of Mr. Shettar as the party nominee from Belagavi. He was part of a delegation that met national general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Radha Mohan Das Agarwal. He attended a meeting in the residence of senior leader Prabhakar Kore in Belagavi, where local leaders opposed the selection of Mr. Shettar.
Mr. Patil, however, said that he will actively participate in the party campaign in Karnataka and Telangana. He said that the BJP high command has made him in-charge of political strategy and implementation in Telangana and Chikkodi parliamentary constituency.
Mr. Patil belongs to the Jain community that is in significant numbers in Belagavi district, especially in Chikkodi constituency.
“I have decided to spend three days in a week in Telangana and three days in Chikkodi. However, I have also requested the party to relieve me of the responsibility in Chikkodi as I may not be able to do justice to multiple regions. There is a pro-Modi wave in Telangana and we hope to win at least 10 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats there,” he said.
The four-time MLA earlier served as in-charge of BJP’s poll preparations for the Assembly polls in several districts in Karnataka and Maharashtra.
