Cong & UBT Sena take potshots at BJP over Sule daughter’s ‘in-law’ Lakhani’s nomination for MLC polls

Chaitanya.Marpakwar

Mumbai: A day after BJP nominated businessman Arun Lakhani, the to-be father-in-law of NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule’s daughter Revati, as its candidate for the upcoming legislative council polls from the Chandrapur-Wardha-Gadchiroli local bodies’ constituency, the opposition Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) took a dig at both Sule and the BJP. While UBT Sena’s Sanjay Raut said that in future, Lakhani may be made working president of NCP (SP) and demanded NCP (SP) workers ask questions to Sule about the nomination, Congress’ Vijay Waddettiwar said BJP should reveal if it had taken “instructions from the Pawars” before giving a poll ticket to “their in-law.”

Lakhani’s son, Sarang, is set to marry Revati Sule.

Lakhani, for his part, said the Pawar family is big in politics, “so their reference will always be there,” but he didn’t see any contradiction in being nominated by BJP. “They (Pawars) work for their party, but naturally I will be addressed as their in-law,” he said.

Sixteen MLC seats from local self-govt bodies in Maharashtra are going to the polls on June 18, and there is one MLC bypoll too.

Wadettiwar criticised the BJP, saying it “always needs big businessmen, but local workers are forgotten.” Raut, however, after taking a dig at BJP and saying NCP (SP) activists should ask questions to Sule, said there was nothing peculiar about the nomination of “gentleman” Arun Lakhani as candidate of BJP as he had always backed the RSS. “He (Lakhani) has been a member, and he is a gentleman who gives strength to the RSS in every way,” Raut said.

Raut added that there are many such lawmakers in Parliament from Maharashtra whose roots are in the RSS. “Lakhani is not from the Congress or NCP (SP). He comes from the list of people in Vidarbha who have backed the RSS from the very beginning,” he said.