Major embarrassment for Congress: Son of Maharashtra Opposition leader joins BJP

Pune, Mar 12: Sujay Vikhe Patil, son of the leader of opposition in Maharashtra Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday, just a month before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The move 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.

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

Patil following that. Joining our party was an open option but at no point of time that seat could have been taken away from NCP," Pawar said, as per the news agency.

The BJP was trying hard to persuade both the Vikhe Patil father-son duo to join the party, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

On the other hand, in more troubling news for the Congress, even as party president Rahul Gandhi chaired the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Gujarat's Gandhinagar, four Congress MLAs in Telangana reportedly quit the party.

On Monday, Pawar had announced that he will not be contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and had instead decided to launch his grand nephew Parth from Maval constituency.