Nana Patole resigns as Maharashtra Congress chief days after assembly poll drubbing
Heads have started rolling in Maharashtra after the Opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi took a massive drubbing in the Assembly polls results declared Saturday. State Congress chief Nana Patole has stepped down after the main Opposition party won just 16 out of the 103 seats it contested. Mr Patole barely scraped through in Sakoli with a margin of just 208 votes.
Mr Patole, a former MP, took charge of Maharashtra Congress in 2021 when he replaced Balasaheb Thorat. Under his leadership, the Congress posted a stunning performance in the Lok Sabha election earlier this year, winning 13 out of 17 seats it contested. Scoring the highest among all Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, the Congress under Mr Patole bargained hard during seat-sharing talks ahead of the Assembly election. This led to friction between Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar). At one point, there were reports that Team Thackeray had refused to hold seat-sharing talks if Mr Patole was involved.