The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Jalgaon in north Maharashtra, Unmesh Patil, who failed to get a party ticket for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024, met Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, sparking speculation about his future political move, reported the PTI.

The BJP has reportedly denied ticket to Unmesh Patil and replaced him with Smita Wagh from the Jalgaon parliamentary constituency, as per the PTI.

According to the PTI, the BJP is fighting the Lok Sabha elections, to be held in five phases between April 19 and May 20, as part of the `Mahayuti` (grand alliance) with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar as its two other constituents.

Talking to reporters after his meeting with Sanjay Raut, Unmesh Patil said, “All your questions will be answered in detail, but today is not the appropriate day for it,” the news agency reported on Tuesday.

Unmesh Patil said that he and Sanjay Raut have been colleagues in Parliament and he wanted to have a dialogue with the latter.

His meeting with Sanjay Raut was only an attempt to protect the friendship that goes beyond politics, he added.

Meanwhile, BJP`s in-charge for Maharashtra, Dinesh Sharma, on Tuesday said that the kind of Hindutva that the Shiv Sena (UBT) workers expect it to stand for is no longer practised by the Uddhav Thackeray-led party but by the BJP, reported the PTI.

Speaking to reporters here, he said that Uddhav Thackeray cheated the BJP after the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls by joining hands with the Congress, and changed the stand from being a pro-Hindutva party to being an anti-Ram temple party.

“The kind of Hindutva that the Shiv Sena (UBT) workers expect it to have is followed by the BJP. It is no longer practised by the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, which aligned with the Congress. It is the same Congress that once rejected the existence of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya,” the BJP`s Rajya Sabha member said, as per the PTI.

Dinesh Sharma claimed that the upcoming Lok Sabha elections revolved around Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ayodhya Ram temple issue, the news agency reported.

(with PTI inputs)

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