Congress, NCP leaders' kin ditching parties for lotus

Mumbai: More Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders’ offspring are on their way to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had recently indicated — following the footsteps of leaders Sujay Vikhe-Patil and Ranj-itsinh Mohite-Patil.

According to sources, Amit Deshmukh, son of former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh; Vishwajeet Kadam, son of the former Congress minister Patangrao Kadam; and Vaibhav Pichad, son of former minister Madhukar Pichad of the NCP are rumoured to be joining the BJP in the near future.

Meanwhile, another NCP leader is set to join the BJP in Maharashtra on Friday. Bharati Pawar, w-ho had contested the Lok Sabha election from Dindori in 2014, said she would be joining the saffron party in the presence of the CM in Mumbai. Ms Pawar, as NCP candidate, had lost to the BJP’s Harishchandra Chavan in 2014. This time, the NCP has denied her ticket, fielding Dhanraj Mahale from the seat instead. She is currently a vice-president of the state NCP unit.

Earlier this week, Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil, son of NCP stalwart and former deputy chief minister Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, joined the BJP. Before that, Sujay Vikhe-Patil, son of Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, had joined the saffron party.

As reports speculated about Opposition leaders who could be on their way to the BJP, former Union minister of state Pratik Patil denied that he was among them. “I will continue to be with the Congress,” he told reporters at Sangli.

BJP leader and revenue minister Chandrakant Patil said that prominent political families in the state are flocking to the BJP as they feel they have no future in the Congress or NCP. “The coming week will have more such developments,” the  minister claimed.