BJP suffers setback ahead of Nanded by-poll as Ashok Chavan’s kin returns back to Congress fold

Veteran politician Bhaskar Patil-Khatgaonkar & Chavan’s brother-in-law quit Congress in 2014 

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Pune: In a major setback to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the October 30, Deglur Assembly by-poll in Nanded district of Maharashtra, former Nanded MP Bhaskar Patil-Khatgaonkar, quit the party and announced his return back to the Congress fold.

Khatgaonkar, a former three-time MP, returned back to the Congress which he had left seven years ago along with former MLA Omprakash Pokarna. 

The by-poll was necessitated following the death of Congress MLA Raosaheb Antapurkar due to Covid-19-related complications in April earlier this year.  

The ruling ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ (MVA) coalition of the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has fielded the deceased MLA’s son, Jitesh Antapurkar, while the BJP has named Subhash Sabne, a former Shiv Sainik. 

The Congress, particularly Ashok Chavan, is leaving no stone unturned to retain his party’s supremacy over the Deglur Assembly seat.  

Khatgaonkar had quit the Congress in 2014 after being overlooked by Chavan who fielded his wife Ameeta Chavan from the Bhokar Assembly constituency in Nanded ahead of the State Assembly election that year.

Khatgaonkar, an old Congress hand and the former MP from Nanded, had to vacate the seat before the 2014 parliamentary election to make way for Chavan, who eventually won the election.

He had hoped Chavan would field him from the Bhokar seat in the Assembly elections held later that year as a quid pro quo – something which never transpired much to the disappointment of Khatgaonkar who then defected to the BJP. 

Commenting on his ‘homecoming’, Khatgaonkar said that he had buried the hatchet with Chavan and said that he was re-joining the Congress as he thought his followers were not getting justice in the BJP. 

Welcoming Khatgaonkar, Chavan said that his presence would strengthen the Congress not just in Nanded district but in the Marathwada region as well. 

Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and now senior Congress minister, Ashok Chavan had been defeated in his bastion Nanded by the BJP’s Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar during the 2019 Lok Sabha election. 

The presence of Prakash Ambedkar’s votes-splitting Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) in the contest, which wooed some of the Dalit-Muslim votes away from the Congress, as well as Patil-Khatgaonkar’s defection to the BJP are said to have contributed to Chavan’s defeat at the time.