Big setback to Congress: After Ashok Chavan, Basavraj Patil quits grand old party ahead of Lok Sabha elections

Lok Sabha elections 2024: In another jolt to the Congress party, Maharashtra working president Basavaraj Patil has quit the grand old party. Patil is set to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) later in the day in the presence of state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bavankule and Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.

Basavaraj Patil is a two-term MLA from the Ausa constituency in Maharashtra. He has also been a prominent Lingayat leader in the Marathwada region. In his first term as MLA, Patil was a state minister. In 2019, he was defeated by BJP leader Abhimanyu Pawar.

Meanwhile, Congress state chief Nana Patole denied media reports of Patil's resignation, saying he did not receive any letter from Patil. "He is not active in the party. We are also hearing the news from the media that he has quit the party, but he has not communicated with us," Patole said.

Big guns quit Congress

The development comes after the Congress was hit by several high-profile exits in the state. Former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, ex-Union Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology Milind Deora, and member of the parliamentary board of the Maharashtra Regional Congress Committee Baba Siddique quit the grand old party.

While Ashok Chavan is presently associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Milind Deora is with the Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena. Baba Siddique, on the other hand, has joined Ajit Pawar's faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Maharashtra Lok Sabha election results

Maharashtra sends 48 members to the Lok Sabha and 19 to the Rajya Sabha.  In 2019, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance won 41 out of 48 seats, with the BJP bagging 23 and the Shiv Sena getting 18 seats. While the Congress managed to retain only one seat, the Nationalist Congress Party retained four of its seats.

In 2014, the BJP won 23 seats whereas its alliance partner Shiv Sena got 18. The Congress, however, went down from 17 seats in 2009 to just two in 2014. Sharad Pawar's NCP won four seats in the 2014 polls.