A day after quitting the Congress, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Tuesday joined the Bharatiya Janata Get together.
On Monday, Chavan had additionally stop as an MLA of the Maharashtra Meeting.
“Right this moment it’s a brand new starting of my political profession,” Chavan informed reporters, reported ANI. “I’m formally becoming a member of the Bharatiya Janata Get together of their workplace immediately in presence of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.”
The senior social gathering chief’s exit from the Congress got here two days after that of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique, who stop the social gathering to hitch the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Get together. In January, Congress chief Milind Deora had defected to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
Fadnavis had mentioned on Monday that “a number of good leaders from the Congress are in contact with the BJP”, reported India Right this moment. “These leaders who’re linked with the plenty are feeling suffocated in Congress,” Fadnavis mentioned.
Whereas in Congress, Chavan had held a number of senior posts. He has been the Lok Sabha MP from Nanded and was the president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee from 2015 to 2019.
On Monday, Chavan denied that the Centre’s white paper on alleged mismanagement of the Indian economic system previous to 2014 prompted his exit from the Congress. The white paper, introduced on the final day of the Price range Session of Parliament final week had talked about the Adarsh Constructing rip-off during which Chavan was implicated, resulting in his resignation because the chief minister in 2010.
Hours after Chavan left the social gathering on Monday, senior Congress chief and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan described the choice as “unlucky”, reported PTI.
“That is an unlucky choice,” he mentioned. “By no means thought an individual like him would take such a step.”
On Tuesday, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh mentioned that the BJP’s “washer” will probably be extra engaging to these politicians who’re weak.
“When pals and colleagues go away a political social gathering that has given them a lot — maybe rather more they deserved — it’s at all times a matter of anguish,” he mentioned in a tweet. “However to those that are weak, THAT Washing Machine will at all times show extra engaging than ideological dedication or private loyalties.”
Ramesh mentioned that the “betrayers” fail to grasp that their exit opens alternatives for these whose progress that they had been hampering.