Will work to strengthen NCP, says Khadse

Former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse on Thursday said he would work to strengthen the Nationalist Congress Party which has nominated him as a candidate for the state Legislative Council elections.

The Sharad Pawar-led party facilitated his political rehabilitation after the BJP, to which he originally belonged, pushed him into political wilderness, he told reporters here.

He had spent 40 years strengthening the BJP in Maharashtra, Khadse said.

''I will now work for the NCP and live up to the confidence shown in me by Sharad Pawar,'' he added.

Khadse claimed that the BJP had offered him a governor's post and later a Rajya Sabha seat (before he left the party) but Bhagwat Karad was nominated at the last minute to the Rajya Sabha. He also said the BJP's denial of nomination for Council polls to Pankaja Munde, daughter of the late Gopinath Munde, was an injustice to her. It was because of Munde and late Pramod Mahajan that the BJP grew in the state, Khadse said.

Targeting BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, he said for 23 years Rajya Sabha and Council elections had taken place without a contest in the state, but ''Fadnavis knows more.'' Khadse, who stepped down from the then Fadnavis cabinet in the state due to corruption allegations in 2016, joined the NCP in 2020. The elections for 10 seats in the Upper House of the state Legislature will be held on June 20.