Mumbai: Former Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Jaysingrao Gaikwad on Tuesday joined the Nationalist Congress Party in the presence of NCP President Sharad Pawar. Heated discussions are on regarding NCP's power in Marathwada. It is being speculated that the party will field Jaysingrao in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
NCP preferred
On the one hand, the BJP is repeatedly saying that the Mahavikas Aghadi government will fall. While senior BJP leaders are paying attention to NCP President Sharad Pawar, the picture is that the disgruntled NCP is getting more preference than other political parties. Former BJP MP Jaysingrao Gaikwad, being a veteran leader after Eknath Khadse, has said that his entry into the NCP will increase the strength of the NCP.
Gaikwad, upset with the BJP's denial of tickets to the Legislative Council in the Aurangabad graduate constituency, had resigned from the party and joined the NCP. Withdrawing his candidature, Gaikwad directly declared his support to NCP candidate Satish Chavan. In the politics of Beed, Jaysingrao Gaikwad is referred to as 'Kaka'.
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Party's strength will increase in Marathwada
With Gaikwad's entry into the NCP, NCP's candidate Chavan is considered as a heavyweight. Gaikwad has twice been elected as an MLA from the same constituency. Apart from this, he has been elected as the Member of Parliament for Beed district three times. He has also served as the Union Minister of State for Education and earlier as Minister of State for Co-operation.
Gaikwad is known to be very close to the late senior BJP leaders Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde. There is no doubt that the strength of the party in Marathwada will increase with the arrival of a leader with such a long experience in politics. Also, the senior leaders of NCP have not yet expressed any displeasure over his joining the party.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, Bajrang Sonawane from NCP had fielded BJP MP Pritam Munde. Sonawane is currently the Vice President of Beed Zilla Parishad. Sonawane is also in charge of the co-operative sugar factory. Although Sonawane is involved in district politics, Sonawane will not go before senior NCP leaders, so political analysts think that there will be no attempt to oust Gaikwad from the district. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Beed constituency is under the control of the BJP. If the NCP decides to contest this Lok Sabha constituency, there is no doubt that Gaikwad's name will be the first choice.
BJP's position fluctuates
At present, there are three NCP MLAs in the district: Dhananjay Munde from Parli, Balasaheb Asbe from Ashti and Sandeep Kshirsagar from Beed. Now that Jaysingrao Gaikwad's experience has been added to it, he will fall on the path of NCP and this will affect the politics of Pankaja Munde. As a result, there is a lot of talk that the NCP has put a wreath on Gaikwad's neck thinking that the strength of the BJP will fluctuate in the future.
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