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Updated: Jun 06, 2019 17:31 IST

The BJP has expelled two of its leaders in Maharashtra’s Nagpur from the party for six years for “abusing” Union minister and senior leader Nitin Gadkari and saying he would lose the Lok Sabha elections even before the counting of votes had started.

Jaihari Singh Thakur and Abhay Tidke were expelled after a phone conversation between them went viral on social media. Thakur and Tidke said that Gadkari would lose to Congress candidate Nana Patole from Nagpur and then went on to abuse him. Gadkari won from Nagpur by a margin of around 197,000 votes.

Thakur was the vice-president of BJP’s Nagpur city unit and Tidke a member of the executive committee.

“Both the leaders claimed through the mobile conversation before the results of Lok Sabha elections that Gadkari would not win as he only pampers rich people and neglects genuine party workers,” the BJP’s Nagpur unit president Sudhakar Kohle said on Wednesday, citing the audio clip conversation.

Kohle said the party would not tolerate such indiscipline. “I have written a letter to Chandrashekhar Bawankule, the guardian minister for Nagpur district, to remove Thakur from the post immediately,” he said.

He was referring to the post of chairperson of Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojna (west Nagpur) held by Thakur.

They also discussed Nagpur (West) legislator Sudhakar Deshmukh, who belongs to influential Kunbi community, would contest the next Lok Sabha election in 2024 and the city Congress chief Vikas Thakre would fight the assembly elections from Nagpur (West) on a BJP ticket in his place in the coming state polls.

One of the expelled leaders Thakur, however, said that the audio clip has been tampered with. “I have great respect for Gadkari and other leaders,” he said.

Thakur complained of chest pain and was admitted to a hospital after he was expelled from the party ahead of the assembly elections in Maharashtra.