Former Home Minister and senior Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Veteran Congress leader and former Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Wednesday claimed that both he and his daughter, MLA Praniti Shinde had received offers to join the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) even as the Maharashtra BJP refuted Mr. Shinde’s claims.
Speaking during a local programme in Akkalkot in Solapur district, Mr. Shinde, who was also a former Maharashtra Chief Minister for a brief period in 2004, revealed the BJP had allegedly tried to lure him twice with offers to join the saffron party, but that he had firmly declined.
“Despite being defeated in the Lok Sabha elections twice (in 2014 and 2019), the BJP offered me and my daughter Praniti to come over to their side. How can this be even possible? We have grown in the lap of our mother (Congress)…at this age how can I join another party?” the 82-year-old Mr. Shinde said.
The veteran Congressman claimed that “a top BJP leader” had made him the offer, but said that neither he nor his daughter were the sort to switch loyalties. He refused to name who in the BJP had made him the offer.
BJP State president Chandrashekhar Bawankule dismissed Mr. Shinde’s claims, stating that his party had made no such offer to wither Mr. Shishilkumar or Ms. Praniti Shinde.
“I’ll say this with responsibility that no offer has been made to either of them. The BJP has no such need to make such offers,” Mr. Bawankule said.
Following Mr. Shinde’s revelations, the Maharashtra Congress, while affirming the loyalty of the Shinde family to the Congress, claimed that the offers probed that the BJP’s self-confidence in Maharashtra was badly shaken and that they knew they could not win the Lok Sabha election this year without poaching big leaders from other parties.
Former Maharashtra CM and senior Congressman Prithviraj Chavan said the alleged offers to Mr. Shinde only proved that PM Modi had no faith in the local BJP leadership in Maharashtra.
“The BJP top brass in Delhi know they cannot rely on their Maharashtra leadership to win this Lok Sabha election. The BJP’s self-confidence is badly shaken. Hence, they first took Eknath Shinde on their side and then Ajit Pawar. Now, Sushilkumar Shinde has said he had an offer but turned it down. He will never leave Congress and go anywhere,” Mr. Chavan said.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said that as the BJP stared at defeat, it was trying to lure leaders from other parties.
“The ground under the BJP’s feet has shifted. They are starting to see defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Hence, they are now trying to poach senior Congressmen like former Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde. Mr. Shinde has publicly stated that the BJP had made an offer to him and he has also made it clear that he will not leave the Congress. The BJP has no leaders and no candidates of its own. Even its current state president Chandrashekhar Bawankule was once in the Youth Congress,” Mr. Patole said.
Last year, in October, Mr. Shinde had said he had retired from electoral politics, while proposing that his daughter Praniti Shinde contest the crucial Solapur Lok Sabha seat in his lieu in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Ms. Praniti Shinde is a three-term MLA from the Solapur City Central Assembly constituency.
Mr. Shinde, who has held several portfolios in the Maharashtra cabinet in the past besides serving as Governor of the undivided Andhra Pradesh (2004-2006), had thrice been elected as MP from the Solapur Lok Sabha constituency — 1998, 1999 and 2009.
However, he had been trounced in the 2014 and the 2019 general elections.
While the BJP candidate, religious leader Dr. Jai Siddheshwar Shivacharya, had beaten Mr. Shinde in the 2019 Lok Sabha contest, the prime reason for his loss was the cannibalising of the Congress leader’s traditional Dalit-Muslim vote bank by the alliance of Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen.