BJP leader Harshvardhan Patil likely to join NCP (SP)
As Pitru Paksha ends, political activity rises. BJP leader Harshvardhan Patil may join NCP-SP, eyeing a return to the Indapur assembly seat.
Mumbai: With the Pitru Paksha – considered an inauspicious period for new beginnings -- coming to an end, political activities are expected to gain momentum, with an eye on the Assembly elections. Candidates’ lists by parties will be released, just as it is an opportune time for those desirous of shifting allegiances.
To that end, on Thursday, word doing the rounds in political circles was that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Harshvardhan Patil is likely to move to the Nationalist Congress Party-SP. It is believed, Patil took the decision following a meeting with the head of the party Sharad Pawar at the latter’s residence in Mumbai on Thursday. The plan was reinforced when he removed the mention of BJP from his social media profiles. Patil said he will make an announcement on Friday and did not reveal details yet.
Patil would be the second prominent leader from BJP in western Maharashtra to join Pawar’s party. Last month, BJP lost its Kolhapur leader Raje Samarjeetsinh Ghatge to NCP (SP); he is likely to contest from the Kagal assembly constituency.
If all goes according to plan, Patil is likely to be the NCP (SP) candidate from Indapur assembly constituency in Pune – one of the six assembly constituencies of Baramati Lok Sabha seat. Significantly, NCP (SP) candidate Supriya Sule had a lead of 25,951 votes in the Indapur segment of Baramati in the recent Lok Sabha elections against Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar.
An arch Ajit Pawar rival, Patil’s political ambitions centre on the Indapur assembly constituency, which he represented four times before losing to NCP’s Dattatraya Bharne in 2014 and 2019.
In fact, Patil’s political journey has been rather chequered – he served as a minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government from 1995 to 1999 before joining the Congress. Through his tenure in Congress, he held many ministerial positions in successive governments.
In the 2014 Patil contested the state Assembly polls on a Congress ticket but by 2019, he had switched allegiance to the BJP. That year, he backed Supriya Sule’s Lok Sabha candidature, anticipating Pawar’s support for the Indapur seat in the assembly polls. However, when NCP fielded Bharne again, Patil joined the BJP.
Although Bharne defeated Patil by a narrow margin, as part of an undivided NCP, he later shifted loyalty to the Ajit Pawar faction of the party after its split in 2023.
Reacting to Patil’s likely move, BJP minister Girish Mahajan said, “He is facing an issue at the Indapur constituency – the MLA from the seat is from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Patil believes Bharne will get the election ticket. That has upset him. He is not unhappy with deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.”
Earlier, former MLA from BJP Bapusaheb Pathare returned to the NCP (SP) fold, and is likely to be fielded from the Vadgaon Sheri assembly constituency in Pune, potentially facing the current NCP MLA Sunil Tingre, who has been embroiled in the controversy surrounding the Porsche crash case in Pune.
Meanwhile, it is learnt, another senior BJP leader Madhukar Pichad is also in talks with Pawar and is keen to return to the party fold along with his son Vaibhav. Once a close aide of Pawar, Pichad was a seven-term MLA from Akole assembly constituency in Ahmednagar district. His son Vaibhav was also a one-term MLA from the seat before losing against the undivided NCP candidate Kiran Lahamte in 2019.
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