Maharashtra elections: Leva Patil community mounts pressure on BJP

The members of the Leva Patil community on Wednesday mounted pressure on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanding a ticket for senior leader Eknath Khadse. This comes a day after he failed to make a cut in the party's first list of candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections.

During a meeting held in Jalgaon by the Leva Patil leaders, they announced that they would no longer support the ruling party in the elections if Khadse's name does not appear in BJP's second list of candidates. They also said that if the BJP does not give the ticket to Khadse, the community would vote to any party Natha Bhau (Eknath Khadse) goes to. The community is traditionally considered to be the BJP supporter and has a significant presence in Khandesh, Vidarbha, North Maharashtra, and other parts of the State.

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"Natha Bhau held the BJP flag when a very few people were with the party. Now, he is being denied a ticket for the Assembly elections. We are deeply hurt by the BJP's approach. If his name doesn't appear in the second list, we will stop supporting BJP and stand by Natha Bhau. We have a presence in several parts of the state and will make BJP realise what they have done if Natha Bhau is not given the ticket. But before taking any extreme step, we request BJP's state unit president Chandrakant Patil and Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis to consider our request," said Leva Patil community head Ramesh Vithu Patil. 

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Eknath Khadse files nomination as an independent

Earlier, miffed over his name not figuring in the first BJP list of candidates for the Maharashtra polls, senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse filed his nomination papers on Tuesday as an independent candidate from Muktainagar in Jalgaon district. Expressing his unhappiness over the treatment meted out to him, the former minister said that if it was a crime to be loyal to the party, then he has committed that offence. The BJP is yet to announced its candidate for Maktainagar constituency. 

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BJP's first list of candidates

The Bharatiya Janata Paty (BJP) has announced its first list of candidates contesting in the Maharashtra Assembly elections on Tuesday. The State President of BJP, Chandrakant Patil, will be contesting elections from Kothrud, while Shivendra Singh, a descendant of Shivaji Maharaj’s family who recently joined the saffron party from NCP, will be contesting from the Satara district. In its first list, the BJP has replaced 12 names of sitting MLAs, while 52 incumbent MLAs have been repeated. Further, the party has included 12 women in the first list of 125 candidates. The election will be conducted on October 21 while the counting of votes will take place on October 24 in Maharashtra. 

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(With ANI inputs)