Athawale, Dalit leaders meet BJP president
Express News Service Posted online: Sat May 07 2011, 03:21 hrs
Mumbai : Mounting pressure on the Congress- NCP, former MP and
Republican Party of India (RPI) leader Ramdas Athawale, who was in
political wilderness after his defeat in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, met
BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Friday.
The meeting, part of his posturing against the ruling Congress-NCP
alliance, follows a similar meeting with Shiv Sena president Bal
Thackeray, triggering speculation of a RPI-Sena tieup for the
forthcoming civic polls. Athawale is due to meet Thackeray again on
Saturday to discuss the proposal of an alliance between the RPI and
the Sena- BJP.
"The BJP and Shiv Sena are allies in Maharashtra and we will surely
decide on agitating along with a third party and working (with it),"
Gadkari told reporters on the occasion. He said he would also discuss
the possibility of the saffron alliance joining hands with the RPI to
raise "basic issues concerning the people".
He attacked the Congress-NCP dispensation for paying lip service to
the uplift of Dalits and backward sections of society and alleged that
the Congress was responsible for creating misunderstandings in the
mind of RPI about the saffron alliance. He said the Sena-BJP did not
believe in political untouchability.
Athawale said the RPI's experience of being a Congress ally for two
decades was bad and admitted that the third front, of which the RPI is
currently part of, lacked political power. He said agitations had been
planned on issues like corruption, unemployment, scams, black money
being parked in tax havens abroad and farmers' suicides. He also
sought the scrapping of the proposed 9,900-MW nuclear power project at
Jaitapur in view of the opposition from the local people.
Athawale said a final decision about the RPI joining hands with the
Sena- BJP was yet to be taken. He was accompanied by Dalit leaders
like poet Namdeo Dhasal, former minister Pritamkumar Shegaonkar, MLC
Sumantrao Gaikwad and Avinash Mahatekar.
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