Big jolt to Congress in Maharashtra; Sujay Vikhe Patil, son of Leader of Opposition, joins BJP

After joining the Bharatiya Janta party, Sujay praised PM Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah for their dynamic leadership and also thanked CM Fadnavis for giving him a chance to serve the BJP.

Sujay Vikhe Patil (Source: PTI)

Mumbai: In what comes as a major setback to the Congress ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Sujay Vikhe Patil, son of the leader of opposition in Maharashtra Assembly, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday. The development comes after NCP chief Sharad Pawar, whose party is in alliance with the Congress in the state, rejected Sujay’s request to contest the polls from Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat. After joining the party, Sujay praised PM Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah for their dynamic leadership and also thanked CM Fadnavis for giving him a chance to serve the BJP. He said that youth and women support his decision to join the BJP, which he said he had been pondering over for that last few days.

Sujay Vikhe Patil:I've taken this decision against my father’s wishes. I don’t know how much my parents will support this decision, but I'll try my best to make my family proud by working under the guidance of BJP. CM & other BJP MLAs were supportive & helped me take the decision pic.twitter.com/7g0NGAAAnV

— ANI (@ANI) March 12, 2019

Sources suggested that Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil could probably resign from his post by evening, though he remained unavailable for comment throughout the day. Interestingly, so far, it was not clear if Sujay would contest on a BJP ticket from Ahmednagar in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Sujay’s father, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, is said to have met Pawar multiple times over the last few days regarding his request, news agency PTI reported. "Ahmednagar seat was always our seat, there was no point in giving that seat to anyone else. If you look back, NCP even defeated late Balasaheb Vikhe Patil from there and I personally had to face legal case in court from Vikhe