Ex-Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan quits Congress, likely to join BJP

Ex-Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan quits Congress, likely to join BJP

Amid increasing murmurs in the past about his plan to jump ship and join the BJP, former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan on Monday resigned from the Congress.

In a terse resignation letter sent to State Congress president Nana Patole, Chavan said, “I am resigning from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress from the afternoon of February 12”.

Speculations about Ashok Chavan quitting the Congress party had been doing the rounds since 2022 when he along with seven other Congress MLAs were late during the trust vote against the Eknath Shinde government in July that year and could not enter the Assembly hall for voting.

However, Chavan had never denied the reports and said no such move on his part was on the cards.

This comes as another setback to the party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election after former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique joined Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s NCP last Saturday, leaving the Congress after 48 years. Siddique had resigned from the party on Thursday.

The son of former Union minister and chief minister the late Shankarrao Chavan, Ashok Chavan made his political debut in 1986 after being appointed the general secretary of the Maharashtra unit of the Congress party.

Elected to the 8th Lok Sabha in 1987, Chavan made his debut in the Maharashtra legislature in 1992 when he was elected to the legislative council for a six-year term during which he served as minister for public works, urban development and home.

Chavan made it to the Maharashtra Assembly in 1999 after winning the Mudkhed constituency and retaining it again in 2004. He then shifted to Bhokar winning the seat in 2009 and 2019. He then fielded his wife successfully from the seat in 2014.

He served as the minister for revenue, transport, and industries before being appointed the CM in 2008 in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. He was the CM of the state for over a year and was forced to resign in 2010 after his name cropped up in the Adarsh Housing scam.

In 2014, he bounced back after winning the Nanded Lok Sabha seat as one of the only two Congress candidates in the state to withstand the ‘Modi wave’. Chavan lost his Nanded seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha election to Pratap Patil Chikhalikar of the BJP.

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