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Patole never bowed down to party’s hypocrisy

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Ever since the so-called ‘Modi wave’ swept BJP to power, the party has become a one-man show. The old guards have been shown the door and new leaders are voiceless. NaMo is not just Number One in BJP, he’s also Number Two, Number Three, and so on down the numeric line. There is no one above him and there is no one below him. BJP has become a party of one dictator. In the recent past, many MPs and MLAs have shown their anger and agony against BJP by quitting the party. In this row, Maharashtra BJP MP Nana Patole has resigned from the party and the Lok Sabha and his membership of the BJP. He had previously raised his voice against PM’s alleged autocratic style of functioning. And this all is happening just 24 hours before Gujarat goes to poll. A time when leaders from other parties are flocking to the BJP, Nana Patole, fired the first salvo at the ruling party by renouncing the party.

Patole, who has betrayed a rebellious mood since the past few months, had earlier said he wouldn’t resign. That, however, wasn’t seen as a sincere claim because he got the hint that after Gujarat elections he would be shown doors by Fadnavis. Patole had been openly criticising the state and central governments lead by Devendra Fadnavis and Narendra Modi, even accusing the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, of not listening to anyone. He had also criticised the Fadnavis government for “not being sensitive to farmers”. He was referring particularly to the loan-waiver scheme, which he had said was causing a lot of hardships to the farmers on account of online application procedure.

Patole had recently joined senior party leader Yashwant Sinha in his agitation for farmers’ demands at Akola. Barely two days later, he decided to resign. Patole had joined the BJP by quitting Congress after 2009 Lok Sabha election, which he had lost to Praful Patel of NCP as an Independent candidate. He had won the election by defeating Praful Patel of the NCP by about 1.49 lakh votes. Patole been approached by many parties, but he had not decided to join any other party. But I strongly believe he will once again unite with Congress as Gujarat elections gave some hopes to the party.

Popularly known as Nanabhau , he was a Member of the Parliament of the 16th Lok Sabha. He represents the Bhandara-Gondiya constituency in Maharashtra. Patole was also a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Sakoli. He fights for OBC and was the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

He grasped the Bhandara-Gondiya Lok Sabha seat from former Union Minister for Civil Aviation and senior NCP leader Praful Patel in the 2014 general election. But the growing camaraderie between Patel and Devendra Fadnavis has brought insecurities to the fore. Patole has been sulking for a while, especially after being told to pipe down by Modi during the latter’s meeting with MPs from the State. He had questioned the decision to set up an independent OBC Ministry, which apparently didn’t go down well with Mr. Modi.

Glad to realise that there are still some people who stick to their principles. Let more people like him have the guts to speak the truth against ruling party and its leadership and his team, who are out to ruin the country. I appreciate him for his real conviction for the people’s cause, particularly for poor farmers. He never bowed to the hypocritical policies of his own party and shown the courage which is now withering in self serving political class.

This encouragement can make other MPs from Maharashtra to follow the same. It is now an accepted fact that the spectacle of one-party-dominant system has returned to Indian politics. It was a spectacle we were witnessing in the first three decades of our Independence. That was the period when the Indian polities revolved round the axis of the Congress Party. The difference today is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has replaced Congress as the party that enjoys unipolar hegemony over Indian politics. Does the BJP as a party has unflinching faith in democracy? Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the party’s supreme leader, strive to uphold the democratic tradition like Nehru did or will he ride roughshod over the democratic institutions, as Indira was fond of doing?

Perhaps, the failures of Modi has prompted senior BJP leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha lit into the Modi government’s handling of the economy, warning of more turbulence and the possibility of a hard landing. Sinha takes on the criticisms that have been levelled against him by Arun Jaitley and other ministers and commentators, questions what he says are their exaggerated claims about the success of various government reforms and schemes that they had accused him of ignoring and warns that worse is yet to come. He also attacked Modi government’s fiasco to address the Kashmir issue, and said that India has already lost the people of the valley emotionally. On Pakistan, the Doklam crisis and Trump’s policies towards South Asia, he said the government has no cause to pat itself on the back. BJP MP from Bihar’s Patna Sahib, Shatrughan Sinha, has stepped up his attack on top party colleagues. He launched a frontal assault on none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani. Though he did not name any of them, it was one of his hardest knocks against Modi, his ministerial colleagues and government policies.

Cricketer-turned-politician and BJP MP from Bihar’s Darbhanga, Kirti Azad stands suspended from the BJP for directly attacking Jaitley over the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) controversy. But Sinha has, so far, been spared the penalty card, to use a sports term. The diatribes of Sinha, an actor-turned-politician, are getting more vicious day by day. Surprisingly, the BJP has not taken any action. The party has not even issued a show-cause notice to him. Perhaps, this has emboldened Sinha, who was the health and family welfare and shipping minister during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, to hit the party hard where it hurts the most.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)

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Vaidehi Taman
Vaidehi Tamanhttps://authorvaidehi.com
Vaidehi Taman an Accredited Journalist from Maharashtra is bestowed with three Honourary Doctorate in Journalism. Vaidehi has been an active journalist for the past 21 years, and is also the founding editor of an English daily tabloid – Afternoon Voice, a Marathi web portal – Mumbai Manoos, and The Democracy digital video news portal is her brain child. Vaidehi has three books in her name, "Sikhism vs Sickism", "Life Beyond Complications" and "Vedanti". She is an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker, OSCP offensive securities, Certified Security Analyst and Licensed Penetration Tester that caters to her freelance jobs.
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