MUMBAI: In a major setback to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in its stronghold of Western Maharashtra, former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil’s son and party’s youth wing leader Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a huge number of his supporters in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Vijaysinh is also the sitting Lok Sabha MP of the NCP from Madha constituency of the Solapur district. He had been eyeing the seat for his son. However, due to internal politics, the party hasn’t announced name of any candidate for the seat. Irked with the politics, Ranjitsinh, who had not been active in politics for past four years, is said to have switched over the party.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that Ranjitsinh’s induction into the party has ensured the party’s victory in the Madha Lok Sabha constituency.
“The state’s politics is incomplete without the Mohite-Patil family. I’m glad that the family is now part of the BJP. This will help the party strengthen its roots in the Western Maharashtra,” Fadnavis said.
Fadnavis also clarified that though Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil hasn’t joined the BJP today, Ranjitsinh’s induction was being done with his support. “His mind is with the BJP,” the CM said.
Ranjitsinh, however, said that he was impressed with the vision and actions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP and hence decided to join the party.
“A few irrigation schemes had been proposed in the arid part of our district which were systematically ignored by the previous governments. However, the government under Fadnavis took the initiative to complete the irrigation projects and a large area now gets water easily. When I realized that only Modi and Fadnavis have the guts to face the challenges and develop projects that would resolve the issues of farming and irrigation, I decided to join the party,” Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil said.
While reciprocating Ranjitsinh, CM Fadnavis said that he would ensure that all the projects that the Mohite-Patil wants to implement in the area would be materialized.
This is the second major success, within a week, for the Maharashtra BJP after leader of opposition Radkahrishna Vikhe-Patil’s son Dr Sujay’s. Sources also said that the next generations of several former Congress-NCP stalwarts are on the way to BJP.
Mohite-Patil family has been very influential in state politics for a long time. Ranjitsinh’s grandfather Shankarrao Mohite-Patil is always referred to as the doyen of the cooperative movement in Western Maharashtra. He originally belonged to the Peasants’ and Workers’ Party (PWP), but switched over to the Congress due to the influence of former CM Vasantdada Patil of Sangli. He was then regarded as Vasantdada camp within the state Congress, which was always opposed to Sharad Pawar camp.
However, Vijaysinh switched side to align with Pawar after formation of NCP. He was duly awarded the post of deputy chief minister before 2004 election. However, he couldn’t get the post back after the election and he was systematically smothered in his home district of Solapur and the condition didn’t improve even when Vijaysinh remained triumphant during the Modi wave of 2014.