After BJP denies ticket, Harshvardhan Patil looks to join Sharad Pawar-led NCP

Harshvardhan Patil. Pic/Facebook (right) Sharad Pawar, chief, NCP-SP. File Pic

A strong sugar cooperative leader, Harshvardhan Patil, is all set to defect to the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar, because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has expressed its inability to field him from his traditional Assembly constituency, Indapur in Pune district, which the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar, a Mahayuti ally, will contest.

Patil started as an independent and became a minister in the Sena-BJP government between 1995 and 1999. He supported the Congress in exchange for a cabinet berth in the alliance government and became a member of the party in his fourth term. He was a minister for four consecutive terms, a feat not many legislators have accomplished.

Ankitta Patil Thackeray, who is likely to resign as chief of BJP's youth wing. Pic/X

His tenure as an independent was so plum that he led a flock of partyless MLAs for over a decade to get a ministerial position for himself and others. In 2014, he lost to Ajit Pawar's protege Dattatray Bharne when all four major parties had broken pre-poll alliances. As Congress and NCP came together again in 2019, the Indapur seat went to NCP. As a result, Patil quit the Congress just before the elections to contest unsuccessfully as a BJP candidate.

After his second consecutive defeat, Patil had been lobbying for prominence in the BJP, but his efforts didn't yield much fruit, except the presidency of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories. Now since both alliances have decided to retain the seats they won individually in 2019 as undivided parties, Indapur will go to Ajit Pawar, who has been feuding with Patil for a long time. The Sharad Pawar faction has claimed the segment where it has found a suitable candidate in Patil. Pawar senior had been in touch with Patil for over two months. The two met in Mumbai on Thursday to seal the deal. Patil is learnt to have met DyCM Devendra Fadnavis before taking a final call.

Harshvardhan Patil, who contested the 2019 Assembly election unsuccessfully on a BJP ticket. File Pic/Atul Kamble

For Sharad Pawar, this is the second big catch in western Maharashtra's sugar belt. Recently, he inducted Samarjeetsinh Ghatge to fight a five-time Kagal MLA and sitting minister Hassan Mushrif (NCP-Ajit Pawar). Then as a BJP nominee, Ghatge was unsuccessful against Mushrif in 2019. Ghatge comes from a royal family into which a great social reformer Maratha king, the late Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj, was born. Patil's daughter Ankitta, who is married to late Balasaheb Thackeray's grandson Nihar, is expected to resign as the chief of BJP's youth wing on Friday.