Praniti Shinde says BJP pursued her but she flatly refused: ‘I strongly believe in Congress ideology’
If nominated by the Congress from the Solapur Lok Sabha seat, the daughter of party veteran Sushilkumar Shinde Praniti Shinde will likely face a new BJP candidate.
Praniti Shinde, who is the sitting MLA from Solapur, also said, “Last year, they tried a couple of times to get me into the party. But I flatly refused. I am a loyal Congress leader and strongly believe in the Congress ideology”. (FB/ Praniti Shinde)
Praniti Shinde, who in all likelihood would be fielded by the Congress from the Solapur Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra, said on Thursday the BJP was trying to woo her into its fold but she refused. Praniti’s name was cleared by the Congress Central Election Committee on Wednesday and the announcement is likely to be made on Thursday, party sources said.
“I was born and brought up in Congress culture. How can I do away with the Congress ideology of secularism?” Praniti Shinde told The Indian Express when asked about the BJP offer.
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The revelation that the BJP approached her came from her father and former chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde two days ago. At a rally in Solapur, Sushil Kumar Shinde had said the BJP was putting pressure on Praniti, 43, to quit Congress and join the party.
“But Praniti is a die-hard Congress woman. She can never imagine dumping the Congress ideology. She has always worked for the people from all sections of the society and continues to serve them,” said Sushil Shinde.
Praniti, who is the sitting MLA from Solapur, also said, “Last year, they tried a couple of times to get me into the party. But I flatly refused. I am a loyal Congress leader and strongly believe in the Congress ideology”.
Recently, a senior leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party acknowledged there was an attempt to get Praniti Shinde to join the BJP but it did not work. The BJP is planning to replace its Solapur MP Jaisidhesvar Swami with a new candidate against Praniti Shinde.
When asked whether the party has conveyed to her that she will be fielded from Solapur, Praniti said, “Not so far. I am expecting the announcement any moment now”.
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Praniti said she is an MLA from the Solapur constituency and had been meeting the people when asked whether she had already started campaigning for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
If Praniti Shinde is named from the Solapur Lok Sabha, which the Congress had dominated for years, she would look to get the family’s honour back. Sushilkumar Shinde had lost the Solapur seat two consecutive times. In 2014, he lost to Sharad Bansode of the BJP by a margin of over 3,60,000 votes, and in 2019, another BJP candidate Jaisidhesvar Swami defeated him in the seat reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates.
The Solapur seat will vote on May 7 in the third of the five-phase Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra.
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.
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