Mumbai: The BJP suffered a big jolt in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra as one of the senior leaders Gopaldas Agrawal left the saffron party to join the Congress.
Agrawal has won the Gondia seat in 2004, 2009 and 2014 for the Congress. However, before the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, he joined the BJP. He lost the elections to Independent candidate Vinod Agrawal because of lack of cooperation from local BJP workers.
A few days ago, he tendered his resignation from primary membership of the party to BJP President J P Nadda.
Agrawal’s departure comes as a big blow to the BJP in the Vidarbha region.
Incidentally, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari hail from Nagpur in Vidarbha region.
In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won just one seat from Vidarbha of the 10 seats.
Agrawal joined the Congress in presence of AICC general secretary Ramesh Chennithala, state Congress President Nana Patole, Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar, former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Dr Nitin Raut, Sunil Kedar, Shivajirao Moghe, Satish Chaturvedi, newly-elected MPs Dr Prashant Padole ,Namdev Kirsan and Shyam Barve, MLA Abhijit Vanjari among others.
“The people of Vidarbha have always supported the Congress and they have welcomed Gopal Aggarwal to the Congress party expressing the belief that they will support him in the Assembly elections,” said Chennithala.
“Gondia city is known as rice city but this business has ended due to the policy of the BJP government. Paddy is not getting MSP , after the coming of Congress government, we will give proper price to paddy and also give bonus,” said Patole.
Published 13 September 2024, 14:35 IST