Saffron sulk

Nana Patole is an angry man. In meeting after meeting, even non-political ones, the former BJP MP from Maharashtra criticises the party, takes potshots at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and vows to bring down the Central and state governments.

His anger will soon turn into action, when he launches a Paschataap Yatra (journey of repentance) from Sindkhed Raja in Buldhana district to Sakoli in Bhandara district—covering more than 800 kilometres—to highlight the severe plight of OBCs and farmers in Maharashtra. “I will first cover Vidarbha, then launch similar yatras in Marathwada and other regions. For this, I am meeting people from all over the state,” he said.

Till recently, Patole was MP from Bhandara-Gondiya constituency in Maharashtra. He had trounced Nationalist Congress Party heavyweight Praful Patel by nearly 1.5 lakh votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, on December 8, Patole resigned from the party and from Parliament, citing 14 reasons, including the governments’ apathy towards farmers. “Modi showed Hitler-like tendencies when I presented issues concerning other backward communities and farmers at a meeting. I was upset. That was the beginning,” he told THE WEEK.

He said that, in the past one year, farmer suicides in India had increased by 43 per cent because the Modi government had not implemented the recommendations of the M.S. Swaminathan commission, which was formed in 2004 to address farmers’ issues. “When Modi visited Yavatmal [during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign], he promised that his government would do so,” said Patole. “But, after coming to power, the BJP government gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court that it could not do so. I told the party leadership that what we had done was totally wrong.”

He said he had resigned because he felt that it was wrong to remain in power if he could not deliver what the people wanted. “If I am not able to do justice to people’s needs and demands, then I don’t want this power,” he said.

At meetings nowadays, he claims that the caste that Modi belongs to—Ghanchi—was included in the OBC list only after Modi became Gujarat chief minister. “That caste is still not considered [a part of the] other backward communities in Gujarat,” he said. “If you [Modi] got it included in the OBC list, then you should be genuinely interested in the uplift of the community and solve its problems. If you are not working on these issues, then you are a bogus OBC.”

Patole said that when he had joined the BJP in 2014 (he was earlier with the Congress), there had been an agreement that there should be a separate Union ministry for the welfare of OBCs. “But, the way Modi and other senior leaders opposed it after forming government was shocking. It was vishwasghat [breach of trust],” he said, adding that the OBC ministry in Maharashtra was a sham. There was no adequate budgetary provision, he said, and the person who should have been the minister was not given the portfolio. “I have seen that Chief Minister Fadnavis always takes an anti-bahujan and anti-farmer stand. His work shows it. His problem is that he does the exact opposite of what you request him to do,” he said.

Patole said he firmly believed that some BJP leaders plotted against senior leader Eknath Khadse and sidelined him. “[Gopinath] Munde and Khadse are the real faces of the BJP in Maharashtra,” he said. “Khadse should have become chief minister, but they got him involved in a [corruption] case by levelling false allegations. Had Munde been there, he would have become chief minister. But, after his demise, why was Khadse not made chief minister?”

According to him, many senior BJP leaders are angry with Modi’s style of functioning. “Not just L.K. Advani or Yashwant Sinha. You will see many more leaders coming out against the government,” he said. “Those who are unhappy with the style of governance will start speaking soon.”

Patole has a point. At the state level, Ashish Deshmukh, BJP MLA from Katol, is up in arms against the government. He recently wrote a seven-page letter to Fadnavis, highlighting various issues that needed to be addressed urgently, including the demand of statehood for Vidarbha. Deshmukh even skipped a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workshop in Nagpur, organised for BJP legislators, despite being in the city at the time. Instead, he met senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar, and accompanied him to the state assembly.

Khadse, too, has voiced his dissatisfaction with the state government. He was particularly furious that he had not received a clean chit in the corruption case, which had led to his resignation as state revenue minister in 2016. Interestingly, he has recently been sharing the stage with leaders of the NCP and Congress. Also, Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan said that the party would welcome a senior leader like Khadse with open arms.

Patole, too, could be welcomed back into the Congress. “I did a rally with him [Congress president Rahul Gandhi] in Gujarat. Now I have one goal, to oust the Modi government from power,” he said. “During our interaction, I told Rahul that Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi did a lot of work for our country. I also told him what [BJP president] Amit Shah said in one of our meetings. Shah had said that the Congress had done all the development and that if people [actually] wanted development, they would have continued with the Congress in power. I have told Rahul Gandhi that I will be happy to work with him if he agrees on the issues I have been taking up. If he agrees, we will work tirelessly to bring the Congress back to power in the state and at the Centre. But, if he doesn’t, I will start my own outfit.”