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Eknath Khadse should return to BJP from Sharad Pawar’s NCP, says daughter-in-law Raksha Khadse

Eknath Khade, who quit the BJP in 2020 and joined the undivided NCP, has recently toned down his criticism of the BJP.

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eknath khadseEknath Khadse was tipped to become a minister after joining NCP during the Maha Vikas Aghadi days. (Express photo/File)

BJP MP Raksha Khadse said on Thursday that her father-in-law Eknath Khadse should return to the BJP from the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

”Many leaders are joining the BJP… I think Nathabhau should return to BJP,” Raksha Khadse, who represents Raver constituency in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, told the media.

”But the final decision about his joining the BJP will be taken at the highest level in the party,” she added.

In 2016, Eknath Khadse resigned as revenue minister in the Maharashtra government under Devendra Fadnavis after he was accused of corruption in the Bhosari land scam. He quit the BJP in October 2020 and later joined the undivided NCP.

Before the BJP picked Fadnavis as chief minister in 2014, Khadse, a BJP veteran of four decades and a former Opposition leader, was a hot contender for the post.

He was tipped to become a minister after joining NCP during the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) days. However, the MVA government fell after the Shiv Sena split in 2022. Adding to Khadse’s woes, the NCP also split last year and he remained with the Sharad Pawar faction, which lost the party name and symbol to the Ajit Pawar faction.

In October 2023, government authorities in the Jalgaon district issued a notice to Khadse and Raksh directing them to pay Rs 137 crore fine for allegedly excavating soil without permission from their land.

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Khadse, who had been aggressively articulating his views against the BJP, especially Devendra Fadnavis, has recently gone silent, leading to speculation of his return to the party.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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