Congress rebel Satyajeet Tambe gets BJP support for Nashik constituency | Mumbai news

Mumbai: After all its protestations to the contrary, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has announced its support to rebel Congress candidate Satyajeet Tambe in the forthcoming legislative council polls. Senior BJP leader and revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, however, declared that the decision to support Tambe was taken by party workers “on their own”.

The announcement has come a day ahead of the polling for the five legislative council seats on Monday: the Amravati Graduates’ Constituency, Aurangabad Teachers’ Constituency, Nagpur Teachers’ Constituency, Konkan Teachers’ Constituency and the Nashik Graduates’ Constituency, from which Satyajeet is contesting as an independent candidate.

The seat has been a bone of contention between the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition and the Tambes for the last few weeks. The Congress had announced Sudhir Tambe, the sitting MLC and Satyajeet’s father, as its candidate—however, at the last minute Tambe Senior backed out while allowing his son Satyajeet to file a nomination as an independent candidate. The development led to much speculation that Satyajeet was on his way to joining the BJP, especially since the latter did not field a candidate from the Nashik seat. Satyajeet Tambe was suspended by Congress for a period of six years on January 19.

The BJP’s backing is likely to give the much-needed edge to Satyajeet, who has received support from many teachers’ organisations, including Shikshak Bharti, a teachers’ association in the state led by MLC Kapil Patil. His possible victory could be a major embarrassment for the MVA, as the three-party alliance will lose one more seat that was with the Congress till the biennial polls.

“Our party workers have decided to vote for Satyajeet Tambe, and this was a decision they took on their own,” Vikhe Patil told reporters on Sunday. “They believe Satyajeet is young and should be given a chance. They have also started appealing to voters on his behalf.”

The ‘party worker decision’ was hinted at by Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Saturday when he said that the local unit of the party would decide whether it wanted to support Tambe or not. “But it is a fact that not a single vote of ours will be polled for MVA candidate Shubhangi Patil,” Bawankule remarked.

Ever since his rebellion, speculation has been rife that the BJP was likely to support Satyajeet, as he had declared that he would seek support from all parties and the BJP was no exception. But though the young politician, to date, has not sought the backing of the saffron party, he has already removed the Congress’ name from his Twitter account.

Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said that the BJP was exposing itself with all these doings. “They have proved that whatever we said was right, and they were behind Satyajeet’s rebellion,” Patole told HT. “Anyway, he is past history for us, and we are sure that MVA candidate Shubhangi Patil will win the election.”

Of the five council seats, one each was with the Congress, NCP and BJP while the remaining two seats had independent MLCs.


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