Will continue to be in Sharad Pawar-led party, says Eknath Khadse

Jalgaon (Maharashtra), Jun 20 (PTI) Former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse on Friday ruled out rejoining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying he will continue to be in the party headed by former Union minister Sharad Pawar.

“The subject of my re-joining the BJP is over. I am with NCP (SP) and will continue to be there,” Khadse, 73, said, after attending a public event in his home district Jalgaon in north Maharashtra, where CM Devendra Fadnavis was also present.

Asked the reason for not meeting Fadnavis at the event, Khadse said, “There was no scheduled meeting. Neither had I sought an appointment with him.” Khadse joined the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in October 2023 after quitting the BJP. His exit from the saffron party after almost four decades followed a rift with Fadnavis.

In June 2016, Khadse had resigned from the Fadnavis-led state government following corruption allegations in an MIDC land deal.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year, there was talk of Khadse rejoining the party he left in 2020 after meeting BJP president J P Nadda.

Khadse had then told a regional news channel, “When I met Nadda, he felicitated me with a scarf, and declared that I had become part of the BJP." The official announcement never came amid speculation that Fadnavis and BJP minister Girish Mahajan, Khadse's rival in north Maharashtra politics, had played spoilsport.

Talks of Khadse returning to the saffron party had intensified after the BJP renominated his daughter-in-law Raksha Khadse as Lok Sabha candidate, and made her a Union minister of state after she won.

PTI COR VT VT