EX-Maharashtra Minister Harshvardhan Patil Joins NCP Days After Quitting BJP

GG News Bureau
Mumbai, 7th Oct. Former Maharashtra minister Harshvardhan Patil joined the opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday, just days after leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). His induction into the NCP took place in the presence of party chief Sharad Pawar.

Patil said that his supporters urged him to contest the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections from the Indapur seat, which he previously represented. “People are more important than political parties in a democracy,” he remarked.

Currently serving as the president of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, Patil resigned from the BJP last week. The Indapur seat falls under the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency. Patil met with Sharad Pawar in Mumbai on October 3, during which Pawar encouraged him to join the NCP and contest the assembly elections, likely scheduled for next month. Patil claimed, “He said he would get me elected.”

Speculation about Patil’s political shift intensified after NCP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar mentioned that candidates who previously won the Indapur seat would be considered for re-election. A four-time MLA from Indapur, Patil has expressed a strong desire to run for the seat again. Currently, the seat is represented by BJP’s alliance partner NCP, which is expected to field sitting MLA Dattatray Bharne.

Patil has had a storied political career, serving as the minister of state for agriculture and marketing in the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance government from 1995 to 1999. He won the 1995 assembly election as an independent candidate and held ministerial roles during the Congress-NCP alliance government from 1999 to 2014.

In 2009, he joined the Congress party and served as the minister for cooperation and parliamentary affairs. In response to Patil’s defection, state BJP minister Chandrakant Patil stated that Patil would “regret his decision” to join the Pawar-led party, asserting that those realizing they might not be fielded for the assembly polls are leaving the BJP.