Patil is the second big leader from the sugar belt after Kolhapur BJP leader Samarjit Ghatge to join Pawar’s camp. The next name to be named could be Madhukar Pichad, a former aide of Pawar who left the NCP and joined the BJP in 2014.
Former Maharashtra minister Harshvardhan Patil today (Monday, October 7) joined the opposition Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP), days after quitting the BJP. It was already being speculated and had been expected for a long time. Patil was inducted into the NCP in the presence of party chief Sharad Pawar. He has been a prominent politician from Pune district. On this occasion, Patil said that his supporters want him to contest the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections from the Indapur seat (in Pune district), which he represented earlier. He said that in democracy people are more important than political parties.
Patil is currently the president of the National Association of Sugar Mill Cooperatives. He left BJP last week. Indapur falls under the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency. Patil met the NCP (SP) chief in Mumbai on October 3 and later said that Pawar had urged him to join his party and contest the upcoming assembly elections.
There was speculation that Patil might switch parties, especially as Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had said that the seats he had won last time would be contested. Patil, who has been elected MLA from Indapur four times, is eager to contest again from this seat. Currently, this seat is represented by BJP’s alliance partner Ajit Pawar’s NCP, which may field MLA Dattatreya Bharane again this time. In such a situation, the path for Patil in the Mahayuti alliance was closed. Therefore, he was looking for a new path, on the other hand, to defeat Ajit Pawar, Sharad Pawar also looks for strong satraps who are successful in the psychology of politics as well as in the political terrain, so that when they land, they can have success.
Who is Harshvardhan Patil?
Harshvardhan Patil has been a bitter rival of Ajit Pawar. He was Minister of State for Agriculture and Marketing in the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition government during 1995-1999. He won the 1995 assembly elections as an independent candidate. He served as a minister during the Congress-NCP coalition government from 1999 to 2014. He joined the Congress in 2009 and was appointed Minister of Legislative and Cooperative Affairs.
As per the agreement between the three parties in the Mahayuti, each of the three parties will get the seats where their sitting MLAs are. As he did not get a seat from the Mahayuti alliance, Patil decided to join Pawar’s party. Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis tried with all his might to stop Patil, but in vain. This is a blow to the BJP as Patil is a prominent name in western Maharashtra.
How Pawar is getting stronger in the sugar belt
Patil is the second big leader from the sugar belt after Kolhapur BJP leader Samarjit Ghatge to join Pawar’s camp. The next name to be named could be Madhukar Pichad, a former aide of Pawar who left the NCP and joined the BJP in 2014. His son Sandeep was a BJP MLA from Nagar-Akola constituency, but lost to the party candidate. NCP in 2019. Sandeep’s situation is similar to Patil’s. He too will not get the ticket due to sitting MLA Ajit Pawar while senior Pawar is looking for a new face.
Apart from these three, there are at least three leaders of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, who are talking to the NCP (SP) to return to Pawar’s camp. Sharad Pawar also wants to recover the lost land in western Maharashtra by cultivating these leaders. The transfer of high-profile leaders like Ghatge and Patil to Sharad Pawar’s camp has created a stir in western Maharashtra. Even before the Lok Sabha elections, he had won the influential Mohite-Patil family of Solapur district to his side. Dhairyasheel Mohite-Patil, a member of this family, also won from the Madha Lok Sabha constituency on the NCP (SP) ticket by defeating BJP MP Ranjitsinh Naik-Nimbalkar.
many people in line
There is talk that Ajit Pawar-led NCP MLA Babanrao Shinde from the same constituency is also exploring the possibility of returning to the Pawar faction. He recently met Sharad Pawar and sought a candidacy for his son in the constituency he currently represents. Apart from these, former Maharashtra Legislative Council president Naik-Nimbalkar has been a close associate of Pawar. After the party split, he sided with Ajit Pawar, but now he is not happy with the Deputy Chief Minister and has hinted that he will return to Pawar’s camp.
The sugar belt of Maharashtra, stretching from Nashik to Kolhapur, has been home to the state’s cooperative sector. Most of the cooperative sugar mills in Maharashtra are located in this area. Pawar has had a strong influence in the region, especially the western region of Maharashtra, for decades. Most of its MLAs come from this area. In the 2019 assembly elections, out of 67 seats in six districts of western Maharashtra, the then BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had won 24 seats, while the NCP-Congress alliance had won 37 seats and 6 seats were won by political parties. smaller or independent candidates. . The NCP won the maximum of 25 seats, which was almost half of its 53 seats. The BJP came second with 19 seats, followed by the Congress with 12 seats.
In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the MVA won 8 seats in the region, while the ruling Mahayuti managed to win 4 seats. Pawar’s faction alone captured four of the 8 seats won by the MVA. In Baramati, Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule retained her seat by defeating Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra by over 1.50 lakh votes. Most of the 25 NCP MLAs from the area sided with Ajit Pawar and some of them are now worried about his future as local sentiments do not seem to be in favor of the ruling parties. This is the area where Pawar has focused his attention as he hopes to win more than 50 seats across Maharashtra.
