Pune (Maharashtra) [India]: Chandrakant Patil, Maharashtra minister and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Kothrud assembly seat, said on Thursday that people felt betrayed when the Waqf amendment bill was sent to the Joint Parliamentary Committee, and due to that the people have decided to give a huge majority to the party in the state’s upcoming assembly elections.
“There was a bit of betrayal felt regarding the Waqf amendment bill, not only the ministers but common people felt that the bill should not have been sent to the Joint Parliamentary Committee. When the abrogation of Article 370 was passed, it was passed in the morning, first by cabinet then went through lok sabha, rajya sabha and by night the president signed it, but this was not the case because in Lok Sabha there were a little less seats won, so no people have decided to give a majority to the party,” he said.
“People were casual before, that the party would cross 400 anyway, but now they will be attentive and vote for us,” he added.
He filled out his nomination form on Thursday for the state’s upcoming assembly election after paying floral tributes at the Vinayak Damodar Savarkar memorial at Pune.
“BJP top leadership have selected me as the candidate from the assembly for the second time. Today, I am filing the nominations. Voters are the king Ever since I got elected last time, I have been in between the people and working in their service, raising the questions they have. In Kothrud there are not a lot of problems now, but the ones which are left I will work to fix them,” he said.
The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, aims to bring significant reforms, including digitization of records, stricter audits, increased transparency, and legal mechanisms to reclaim illegally occupied waqf properties.
Moreover, the state’s assembly elections are scheduled for November 20, with counting for all 288 constituencies set for November 23.
The main electoral contest will be between two alliances, namely the Mahayuti – comprising of BJP, Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) and Shive Sena (Eknath Shinde). The other alliance is the Maha Vikas Agadhi – comprising of Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (Sharad Pawar).
In the 2019 assembly elections, the BJP won 105 seats, the Shiv Sena 56, and the Congress 44.