Once lording over the BJP in North Maharashtra, the Khadse family has witnessed flip-flops, corruption cases and embarrassing situations in recent years. Sisters-in-law on opposite sides of the political spectrum while the patriarch, who was waiting to return to his parent party, was given the cold shoulder, forcing him to stay back where he is.
It surprised many and upset his followers when Eknath Khadse, a loyal BJP worker and former minister, quit the party and moved to the undivided NCP in 2020 on the heels of alleged corruption charges. He had started his career as a sarpanch of Kothali village and entered the legislative assembly for the first time in 1987 and since then, has won six consecutive elections till 2019 from the Muktainagar constituency in Jalgaon.
Until his fall from grace within the BJP in 2016, Khadse had been a BJP worker since the 1980s and helped grow the party’s base in North Maharashtra. He was made minister in 1995 during the Shiv Sena-BJP government and has held several key positions over the decades. He was the leader of the opposition between 2009 and 2014 and was commended for his efficient work. When the BJP won the elections in 2014, Khadse had openly shown his desire to become the chief minister. Charges of corruption in a land deal and accusations of misusing his office forced Khadse to resign from the government in 2016. Activist Anjali Damania had led the protest against him after a Pune-based realtor accused him of land grabbing and abusing his position as the revenue minister to get land at lower-than-market prices for his family. Even earlier, he was ridiculed for wasting water to create a temporary helipad for his tour of a drought-stricken Latur when the people were thirsty in the parched region.
In 2020, Khadse quit the BJP and joined the undivided NCP along with his daughter Rohini Khewalkar. Khadse’s party colleagues and workers resented his act of cornering key positions for his family members. While his wife was made director of Mahananda, a milk cooperative, his daughter-in-law Raksha has been a BJP Member of Parliament since 2014. Raksha, a three-time MP from Raver is now a minister state at the centre. Before his daughter Rohini followed him into the NCP, she had contested the assembly elections from Muktainagar in 2019 but had lost to the Shiv Sena candidate.
Earlier this year, Khadse had expressed a desire to be welcomed back into the BJP but the party showed no inclination.
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