Setback for BJP in Maharashtra: Ashok Chavan's brother-in-law and ex-minister Bhaskarrao Patil joins Congress

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has suffered a major setback in Nanded ahead of the upcoming assembly polls in Maharashtra. Nanded, who joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, is considered former chief minister Ashok Chavan's bastion. Now, his brother-in-law and former MP Bhaskarrao Patil Khatgaonkar has returned to the Congress fold after quitting the saffron party in Maharashtra.

Khatgaonkar, a three-time former Lok Sabha MP from Nanded, rejoined the Congress, where he had spent several years before switching sides. The veteran politician is the brother-in-law of Ashok Chavan, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP in February this year.

Former MLA Omprakash Pokarna and Khatgaonkar's daughter-in law-Meenal also joined the Congress. 

MPCC president Nana Patole expressed confidence that Khatgaonkar's return will help the Congress do well in the assembly seats in Nanded, Chavan's home turf in the Marathwada region. Khatgaonkar said he was happy to be back home and acknowledged Congress had given him an opportunity to serve as an MLA, MP, and minister during his decades-long political career. "For sometime, I had joined another party (BJP), but now I have come back home," he said.

Khatgaonkar joined the BJP in 2014 when the saffron party formed its first government in Maharashtra under the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis. The former minister asserted he will try his best to ensure the Congress wins maximum seats in the assembly polls. 

In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress wrested the Nanded seat from the BJP. Nanded has six assembly segments, of which two each are with Congress and BJP, and one seat with Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.   

Last week, former MLA from Gondia district Gopaldas Agrawal returned to the Congress after resigning from the BJP which he had joined in 2019.

Mumbai ex-police chief Sanjay Pandey joins Congress

Meanwhile, former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey, who was arrested in 2022 in the NSE co-location case, has also joined the Congress. He was inducted into the Congress by its Mumbai unit chief and Lok Sabha MP Varsha Gaikwad. The retired IPS officer, who briefly served as the acting Maharashtra director general of police, said no other political party except the Congress follows secular ideology. "I am not joining a party but a family. I wanted to join the Congress way back in 2004, but didn't get a chance," said Pandey.