Mumbai: Less than a month after he was expelled from the Congress, former MLA Ashish Deshmukh on Sunday rejoined the BJP ahead of the next year's Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections. Deshmukh was inducted back into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Nagpur in the presence of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and senior party leader Devendra Fadnavis and the party's state unit president Chandrashekhar Bawankule.
Ahead of the 2014 state Assembly elections, Deshmukh had joined the BJP. He contested that election and won from the Katol Assembly seat in Nagpur district, defeating his uncle and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) nominee Anil Deshmukh. However, he resigned from the BJP in 2018 following differences with the party leadership and later joined the Congress. He was the Congress nominee against BJP leader and now Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis from Nagpur South West seat in the 2019 Assembly polls.
The Congress last month expelled Deshmukh over his public statements against the party leadership. Deshmukh had said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the Other Backward Class (OBC) community over his "Modi surname" remarks. He had also accused state Congress president Nana Patole of being hand-in-glove with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
While rejoining the BJP, Deshmukh said, "I will not contest the Lok Sabha or the Assembly election in 2024. I will work for the party and for protecting the interests of the OBCs." He also criticised state Congress president Nana Patole without taking his name.
"I will work towards ending the 'Nanagiri' (reference to Patole) in the Vidarbha region. Former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had backstabbed the then CM Fadnavis. Now it's time to show him his place." Deshmukh's father Ranjit Deshmukh is a former state Congress chief. He later quit the party and floated his own outfit. (PTI)
