Close on the heels of senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil’s son Dr Sujay Vikhe-Patil joining the BJP, it is now the turn of Ranjitsinh – son of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP and former Deputy Chief Minister Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil – to join principal ruling party.

After weeks of speculation, Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil on Tuesday resigned from the NCP and announced in Solapur in western Maharashtra that he would join the BJP on Wednesday.

Ranjitsinh,  who had unsuccessfully been lobbying for a NCP ticket to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Madha constituency in western Maharashtra, said that his supporters could no longer wait for the NCP to nominate him as its candidate. “For how long should my supporters tolerate this kind of injustice and now it is time for me to take the final decision,” he said.

“Should we keep tolerating, or hit back for our future, progress and development? You decide whatever you want and it will be my decision to quit” Ranjitsinh  said, while addressing a meeting of his supporters for this evening at Akluj in Solapur district.

Ranjitsinh, who resigned from the primary membership NCP on Tuesday,  will formally join the BJP on Wednesday afternoon, in the presence of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state party chief Raosaheb Danve-Patil and other leaders in Mumbai.

It may be recalled that on March 11, NCP chief Sharad Pawar had backed out of the contest, setting the stage of the entry of his grandson Parth Pawar into electoral politics.

A month after he indicated that he would contest from Madha Lok Sabha constituency in western Maharashtra, Pawar, announced that he had decided not to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Madha constituency or any other constituency.

Pawar’s announcement had come after he met the party office bearers from Solapur in western Maharashtra – at which he urged his party workers to support the NCP’s sitting MP Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, who will re-contest the Lok Sabha polls from Madha constituency.

However, in the subsequent days, Ranjitsinh also began to lobby for the Madha seat. However, senior Mohite Patil—who is the close confidant of Pawar for very many years, appears to have had way. Vijaysinh will in all likelihood be nominated as the NCP candidate from Mahada constituency.

Ranjitsinh is the second Opposition leader to have joined the BJP in recent weeks.

It may be recalled that on March 12, Dr Sujay Vikhe-Patil, son of the leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, finally joined the ruling BJP on Tuesday,  thus causing considerable embarrassment to the Congress in general and Sr Vikhe-Patil in particular.

A neurosurgeon by profession, Sujay is the grandson of late Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil, who was a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

The BJP has decided to field Sujay as its candidate from Ahmednagar Lok Sabha constituency in place of its two-time MP Dilip Kumar Gandhi.  Gandhi’s supporters have already registered a protest in front of the State BJP headquarters against Sujay’s entry to the BJP.

Meanwhile, Sujay’s father  Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil on Tuesday once again denied that he had resigned from his post as the leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly.