After revolt, BJP plans to pacify Maha OBC leaders

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, December 14

The Central leadership of the BP has decided to mollify the powerful Backward Castes lobby in its Maharashtra unit as several leaders from that group have raised the banner of revolt.

According to sources, the BJP is planning to get an OBC leader elected as its leader in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, the upper house of the state legislature. The party is also looking to offer posts within the party to several members of the community in the coming months, according to sources here.

Over the past few weeks several prominent OBC faces in the BJP, including Eknath Khadse, Pankaja Munde, Vinod Tawde, Ram Shinde and Chandrashekhar Bawankule, were seen coming out in the open against former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, a Brahmin by caste.

All these leaders, who were ministers in the Fadnavis government, either lost the recent Maharashtra Assembly elections or were not given the ticket by the party.

The OBC lobby is blaming Fadnavis and a coterie allegedly loyal to him for their being sidelined by the party.

At a meeting to take stock of the BJP’s poor showing in the Assembly elections, several of these leaders hit out Fadnavis and his loyalists. Former Water Resources Minister Prof Ram Shinde, who lost to Sharad Pawar’s grand nephew directly blamed Fadnavis for alienating RSS activists and old BJP workers in several constituencies after rebels from the NCP and the Congress were inducted into the party.

The OBC lobby is, however, facing opposition from a section of the RSS that is said to be backing Fadnavis, according to sources here. The former CM is said to be demanding action against Khadse and Pankaja Munde, who openly criticised the BJP at a rally earlier this week, according to sources.