5 reasons why Maharashtra BJP picked Medha Kulkarni for Rajya Sabha

Medha Kulkarni is considered close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership and has toed the Sangh’s line even while serving as an elected representative in the past. The Sangh Parivar had recently declared its plan to encourage and empower women to take forward its ideology.

Pacifying the Brahmin community

The denial of a party ticket to Medha Kulkarni in the 2019 Assembly election from Kothrud to make way for a non-Brahmin BJP leader, Chandrakant Patil, had angered the community in Pune. Brahmin organisations had publicly declared that they would not stand by Patil and had to be pacified before polls.

The community was further irked after the BJP ignored their demand to give a party ticket to their representative in the Kasba Peth Assembly bypoll last year. The BJP faced a setback as its candidate Hemant Rasane lost to Congress’s Ravindra Dhangekar and the party failed to retain its bastion.

“It is wrong to blame the Brahmin community for the loss in the Kasba bypoll last year. The community has been a loyal BJP voter and it was not wrong for it to expect their representative to be elected to the Assembly. The community is pleased with my nomination to Rajya Sabha,” Kulkarni said soon after her candidature was declared on Wednesday.

Avoiding a repeat of Kasba bypoll

The Kasba bypoll defeat last year has hurt the BJP, considering that it came a year before the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. In 2014, the BJP won all eight Assembly seats in Pune and the Pune Lok Sabha seat. But it has only five legislators from the city in the Assembly and the Lok Sabha seat has been vacant since the demise of its leader, Girish Bapat, last year. The bypoll for the Pune Lok Sabha seat has not been held yet and the Supreme Court recently pulled up the Election Commission for not holding a bye-election for the seat. The BJP is alleged to have influenced the Election Commission’s decision after its defeat in the Kasba bypoll, a loss that dented its image among voters.

Tackling infighting in Pune BJP

Since 2019, Medha Kulkarni has adopted an aggressive stance against Chandrakant Patil and the local leadership of Kothrud for allegedly sidelining her deliberately. She had been publicly expressing unhappiness over being ignored by the party and had taken a stand in favour of protecting the hills from infrastructure development in Pune, which was against the Patil-led local BJP leadership’s decision.

Kulkarni had also raised her voice against party leaders claiming credit for the Chandni Chowk flyover, which she had been pushing from the time she was an MLA in 2014. Kulkarni was pacified by Union minister Nitin Gadkari after the flyover inauguration and assured that her feelings would be conveyed to the party high command.

Rewarding loyalty

Medha Kulkarni’s candidature has come at a time when the BJP in Maharashtra is witnessing rumblings in the ranks with the split Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) factions being included in the government. The BJP is also facing flak for roping in former Congress leaders. By picking Kulkarni, the party is seen as sending the message that loyal party workers will be a priority.