Maharashtra congress chief Nana Patole is fighting many battles. He is at war with the BJP, he is battling it out with the NCP and Shiv Sena and as if that was not enough, he has now unsheathed his sword to take on his party colleague and energy minister Nitin Raut.
A few days ago, Patole was in the eye of a storm after he claimed that chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar were keeping a watch on him. “Reports of my meetings, movements and functions that I attend are being sent to them every day," said Patole at a meeting of party activists recently.
Chief minister Thackeray laughed off his remarks but deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar did not take it lightly. Pawar raised a strong objection and said that when a party president makes these remarks, it is considered as official line of that party and could as well mark the beginning of implosion of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.
Patole was snubbed by his party seniors, namely H.K. Patil who is Congress general secretary in-charge of Maharashtra. But in public, the Congress leadership claimed that Patole’s remarks were misconstrued and they were actually aimed at central government and not the CM and deputy chief minister.
Patole was also dropped from a Congress delegation that went to meet NCP supremo Sharad Pawar at the latter’s residence. At the meeting, Pawar is learnt to have voiced his strong displeasure at the statement made by the state congress president.
But that has not deterred Patole as just a day after Congress delegates' meeting with Pawar, Patole once again reiterated that Congress will fight next elections alone and on its own strength in order to regain its lost glory.
Patole has now fired a fresh salvo at the Pawars. He called Sharad Pawar 'remote control' of the MVA government in Maharashtra and announced that he would hold a grand rally of OBC workers of Congress in Baramati, the home turf of NCP and Pawar family.
Patole's fight against his party colleague Nitin Raut is over the energy ministry. When he became state president, Patole had hoped to get a ministry too. He had shown interest in energy portfolio currently being held by Raut. Since then, the two of them have crossed paths time and again. Recently, Patole had complained to Thackeray about a contract awarded to Rukhmai infrastructure by state mining corporation to wash coal that is supplied to Maharashtra state electricity generation company(MahaGenCo). Patil urged the CM to cancel the contract awarded to Rukhmai Infra.
Last week, Raut had made a trip to Delhi to meet central leadership of the Congress to air his complaints against Patole. Raut met senior congress leader K.C. Venugopal and poured his heart out. Raut has been assured that his grievances will be addressed soon.
