The raging controversy over the Rafale scam has taken its first casualty in the BJP as the saffron party MLA in Maharashtra resigned from the assembly on Tuesday.
Deshmukh, who resigned from the state legislative assembly as well as from the primary membership of the party on Tuesday, issued a statement on Wednesday citing the reasons for his disenchantment with the BJP.
He said that schemes such as Make in India, Magnetic Maharashtra (the BJP-led state government’s investment summit) and Skill India ‘showed no results on the ground.’ “Also, there is mega corruption in the Rafale deal,” he was quoted by NDTV.
On Tuesday, Deshmukh had also tweeted the copy of his resignation letter with a caption ‘truth can be harassed but it can’t be defeated.’
सत्य परेशान हो सकता है लेकिन पराजीत नही …
महात्मा गांधीजींच्या या शिकवणीतून प्रेरणा घेत आज मी माझ्या आमदारकीचा राजीनामा देत आहे .
मी माझ्या आमदारकीचा राजीनामा आदरणीय विधानसभा अध्यक्ष श्री.हरिभाऊ बागडे यांच्याकडे सुपूर्द केला आहे .
जय भारत , जय हिंद , जय विदर्भ … pic.twitter.com/SIJTfiB319— Dr Ashish Deshmukh (@ard_office) October 2, 2018
“The situation of farmers and the youth has worsened in the last four years but the government is indulged only in the politics of vote bank for winning elections and dividing the nation,” PTI had quoted him as saying.
Deshmukh, the son of former Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Ranjeet Deshmukh, had also met Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh earlier this week and showered praises on him. He had said, “Young peoplehave a lot of expectations from him.”
There are speculations that he may soon join the Congress. He represented Katol constituency in Nagpur district. In December last year, the BJP had served him a notice to explain why he had chosen to skip a visit to the RSS headquarter.