Ashok Chavan bids adieu to Congress, likely to join BJP
Ashok Chavan bids adieu to Congress, likely to join BJP
Ahead of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024, Senior Congress Leader and Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan bid adieu to the Congress on Monday.
He is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on 14 February. However, according to him he hasn’t taken any decision as yet.
Chavan, who was authorised by the Congress to hold seat-sharing negotiations with the alliance partners, is the third prominent leader to exit the party in less than a month.
This comes after former Union minister Milind Deora had joined the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Maharashtra former minister Baba Siddique joined the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.
It is learnt that some more Congress leaders are also set to quit the party and join the ruling parties before the Lok Sabha election.
Later, the 65-year-old Congress leader denied having taken any decision regarding joining the BJP. He has been in the Congress since his birth.
He worked for the party honestly till yesterday. But now he feels it is time to explore other options and he needs some time to think about his future course of action.
Reportedly Chavan was miffed with state Congress president Nana Patole who he felt did not give him due respect. Sources reveal that Chavan had raised the issue with the Congress high command and demanded a change of leadership in the state. Nitish Kumar who was sworn in as Bihar CM for Ninth Time and Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan expressed surprise saying that Ashok Chavan was at a party meeting till 5 pm on Sunday.
It did not appear that he was upset with anything. There is no clue about what happened overnight. Only he can tell what were his compulsions or whether he was under any pressure from anyone.
Congress Legislative Party leader Balasaheb Thorat said Ashok Chavan wanted to continue the discussion on Monday. The Congress has denied that any more of its MLAs will join Ashok Chavan.
But the indications of Congress defections have been there for nearly two years now. In the Legislative Council elections held on June 20, 2022, several Congress legislators had cross-voted, resulting in the party losing the seat.
About 10 Congress MLAs, including Ashok Chavan, were not present in the Assembly during the trust vote moved by the Eknath Shinde government on July 4, 2022.
News Edit K.V.Raman
