Will Rohini Khadse Able To Reclaim Muktainagar? (image: facebook.com/rohini.khadse)

Muktainagar, Maharashtra: Rohini Khadse, daughter of senior politician Eknath Khadse, is contesting on a NCP (SCP) ticket from Muktainagar constituency. She is fielded against sitting MLA Chandrakant Patil. She is the sister-in-law of Union Minister and BJP’s Raver MP Raksha Khadse.

Rohini is the president of the women’s wing of the NCP (SCP). She has also held significant positions such as Jalgaon District Central Cooperative Bank President, Vice President of the Maharashtra State Co-operative Textile Federation, and Chairman of Jalgaon District Central Co-operative Bank.

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This is Rohini’s second contest in the electoral field and second face-off between Rohini and Patil. In her debut polls in 2019, Rohini lost the seat to Patil with a slight margin of 1,957 votes. If Rohini wins the election from the assembly segment after Raksha, she will be the second woman elected representative from the Khadse family. The NCP (SCP) hopes that Khadse’s influence in the constituency will aid Rohini in the polls.

Eknath Khadse

Eknath Khadse, a veteran politician and influential leader, ended his four-decade-old association with the BJP and joined the undivided NCP in 2020. However, this year, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Khadse resigned from Sharad Pawar’s party and said that he would rejoin the BJP. But Rohini said that he would not be following her father and would remain with the Sharad Pawar group.

Earlier this year, Khadse has also campaigned for Raksha Khadse in Lok Sabha polls. But due to stiff objections from some senior members of the state BJP, Khadse’s return to the BJP got postponed. He then finally announced that he would not join the saffron party.

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Muktainagar constituency, located in Jalgaon district, was once a bastion of Eknath Khadse. He represented the seat from 1990 to 2019. The controversy concerning his alleged involvement in the MIDC land scam has shaken his political career in 2016. As per the BJP’s instruction, he had to quit his position as a state revenue minister and in the 2019 assembly polls, Khadse was replaced by Rohini as BJP candidate. He has been increasingly excluded from the BJP which then prompted his resignation and joining the NCP (SCP).