Congress leader Harshvardhan Patil hints at joining BJP

Accusing the NCP of not keeping its promise of ceding the Indapur Assembly seat in Maharashtra to the Congress, senior party leader Harshvardhan Patil on Wednesday hinted he may switch over to the ruling BJP in next few days.

Speculation has been rife since last few says that Patil, the four-time MLA till 2014 from his stronghold Indapur, may join the BJP as the NCP is not ready to give the seat to the Congress as part of their pre-poll alliance.

The seat is currently represented by Datta Bharane of the NCP.

"During the Lok Sabha elections (held earlier this year), it was decided in the presence of Rahul Gandhi (the then Congress president) that in the state Assembly polls, the NCP will cede the seat to the Congress and on that basis, we all worked for NCP candidate Supriya Sule and gave her a lead of 71,000 votes," Patil said.

"But, now they are not ready to cede the seat to the Congress as promised, so there is an overall feeling of injustice among people and now the time has come that we should make the decision," he said addressing his supporters in the Indapur Assembly segment of Pune's Baramati Lok Sabha seat.

Patil praised Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for helping him to solve the issues of people from Indapur, giving strong indications that he may join the BJP.

"During the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP offered me a ticket, but I did not accept it and instead, we worked for Sule and gave her a decisive lead from the constituency, but in return, what have we got?" he asked.

When the former state cooperative minister asked his supporters about their feelings, they started shouting "BJP, BJP, Modi, Modi".

Patil said he respects the emotions of all his supporters and will take a decision "in favour of people of the constituency, their aspirations and the future".

"Everybody knows what kind of winds are blowing in the country...so in the coming days, we will decide the future course of action," he added.

Patil said he will take a decision about his next political step before September 10.

Patil also praised the late BJP leader Gopinath Munde and said he was a man of his words.

"In 1999, when the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance lost and the Congress-NCP came to power, I won the Indapur seat as an independent. Munde saheb took me to (former chief minister) Vilasrao Deshmukh and asked him not to do any injustice to me," he said.

He accused the NCP of taking undue advantage of him and his supporters in the Congress.

"They took us for granted thinking that we would never speak... we were committed and lent our support to the NCP in all the Lok Sabha elections in Baramati constituency but in return, we only got betrayal, injustice, and insult," he said.

Patil said in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he was called by Rahul Gandhi to Delhi.

"During our meeting, he asked me to support Supriya Sule... when I expressed my reservations stating that supporters are not ready, he said the party and alliance with NCP are in a difficult situation and convinced that if Baramati goes away from NCP, it will have impact across the state," claimed Patil.

"Later NCP chief Sharad Pawar, too, called me at his Mumbai residence and in the presence of Sule promised that Indapur seat will be ceded to the Congress in the assembly elections and told me that we will have to work together," said Patil.

He also claimed NCP leader Ajit Pawar, during a meeting in Pune which happened in the presence of Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan, said he has so objection over ceding the Indapur seat to the Congress.

Patil said when Gandhi was here in Pune, he called him and Sule to a hotel. Gandhi told Sule that he will work for her in the Lok Sabha elections but in return, the NCP will have to lend it support to him in the assembly elections, he claimed.

Patil told his supporters at the gathering that going forward they will not bear any injustice.

Several Congress and NCP leaders have joined either the ruling BJP or the Shiv Sena in the recent past.