Maharashtra: It’s official, Harshvardhan Patil quits BJP to fight against Ajit Pawar’s man

Harshvardhan Patil

A day after sealing a deal, Western Maharashtra's sugar lobby leader and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Harshvardhan Patil officially announced that he, along with his family and supporters from Indapur, will be joining the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party. He said the BJP had expressed its inability to field him from Indapur in the Assembly elections because the seat was already allotted to the Ajit Pawar faction's sitting MLA Dattatreya Bharne. In the coming weeks, Patil will be challenging two-time winner Bharne.

"All my supporters want me to contest from Indapur. I met Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis to discuss it. At the end of our discussion, it was clear that the seat would be contested by NCP's (AP) sitting MLA Bharne. I was given an alternative which my supporters didn't approve of," he told media persons in Indapur on Friday, adding that, meantime, Sharad Pawar had asked him to join his party.

He said he had discussed his move not only with Fadnavis but other BJP leaders such as Raosaheb Danve and Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil. "Accordingly, I declare today that we all [including him, his daughter and son, and supporters] will be joining the NCP of Sharad Pawar. My decision is for my people who were wronged in the past 10 years. My family's relations with the Pawar family have always been cordial. In politics, there are no enemies..." he added, leaving the announcement of his poll ticket to his new party bosses.

According to information, Patil's candidature will be yet another flash point for his long-drawn battle with Ajit Pawar. In the recent Lok Sabha elections, fighting against Supriya Sule, Ajit's wife Sunetra trailed in the Indapur Assembly constituency. It was after many years that the undivided NCP had managed to snatch the constituency from Patil in 2014.

Before the defeat, Patil had won thrice as an independent and later as a Congress nominee, and secured a ministerial position for 20 consecutive years, first in the Shiv Sena-BJP government, and later in the successive three Congress-NCP governments. The leader, who once stood up against the undivided Pawar family's, especially Ajit's might, will now be a tool to avenge himself on behalf of his new party.