Dalit Congress leader strikes rebellious pose

Mumbai: Dalit leader of the Congress party from Mumbai, Chandrakant Handore, who was unceremoniously dumped by his own party MLAs in the June 20 Vidhan Parishad elections, has begun to publicly voice his political discontent.

Rumours have been rife that Handore may be looking to jump ship to either the BJP or to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s rebel-Sena grouping once the Supreme Court decides on the latter’s legality. Handore’s loss came despite a party Congress party whip to ensure he secured 29 firstpreference votes from 44 MLAs. The remaining 15 votes were to go to the Congress’s Mumbai district president Bhai Jagtap, who would have been left short of eight votes to win. Handore was only able to muster 22 votes- -four short of the 26 needed to become the Congress MLC. By the time counting was done, however, an upset Handore--who realized that the first preference votes due to him were being usurped by his colleague Jagtap- -had left the voting centre in a huff.

While Jagtap did not respond to calls and messages, ex-CM Prithviraj Chavan told First India: “I had informed the high command that injustice had been done (to Handore). First of all, the one(s) responsible for the cross-voting need to be identified. Attention has also to be paid to see if they (BJP) are plotting a spilt in the Congress party. I have very strongly told the party leadership that Handore should be rehabilitated and justice should be done to him to prevent any political mishap.” Meanwhile, the Congress leadership in New Delhi has deployed senior leader Mohan Prakash to conduct an inquiry into the alleged crossvoting by at least seven MLAs during the Vidhan Parishad election.