Mumbai: Over the past month, the political tussle between Congress’s most senior leader in Maharashtra, Balasaheb Thorat, and the party’s state unit president Nana Patole has come out in the open.

While the two have claimed that all is well in the party, that the stories of their fighting are merely “figments of BJP's imagination”, recent developments hint at clear fissures which could have a lasting impact on the party. So much so that Kerala Congress president Ramesh Chennithala was deployed to the state to assess the ground reality.

“The Congress president has deputed Ramesh Chennithala to assess the latest political situation in Maharashtra and report to him, with immediate effect,” Congress general secretary, K.C. Venugopal, said in a press statement.  

The conflict became evident last month after Thorat’s nephew Satyajeet Tambe filed his nomination as an “independent candidate” from the Nashik graduate constituency despite the Congress party choosing his father and the then-sitting MLC Sudhir Tambe. Meanwhile, Sudhir also did not file his nomination even after the party asked him several times. The father and son duo have since been suspended from the party. Satyajeet Tambe eventually won as an independent candidate. 

Thorat, unlike his relatives, continues to be a Congress party loyalist. An MLA from Sangamner constituency, Thorat served as a revenue minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government between 2019- 2022.

Thorat’s close aide told The Wire that when Tambe openly rebelled against the part, Thorat was questioned and that he felt cornered for facing unnecessary scrutiny. Thirty-nine-year-old Tambe, a US graduate, is a former president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress and an ex-member (2007-2017) of the Ahmednagar Zila Parishad.

Through the political drama, Thorat had stayed mum and his silence was looked at as support to the father-son duo who had been accusing the Congress party of not giving their family a fair deal. Interestingly, following Tambe's decision to contest as an independent candidate, the BJP didn’t field its own candidate from the constituency. 

Since the time Tambe decided to go his separate way, Thorat has been complaining against Patole for directing “unfair anger” towards him. On February 2, Thorat finally wrote to the All India Congress Committee president Mallikarjun Kharge that he could not work under the leadership of Patole in the state. In his letter, Thorat said he felt humiliated and that he was subjected to a vicious attack by Patole at the BJP’s behest.

Thorat, however, momentarily calmed down following the party’s Maharashtra in-charge H.K. Patil’s intervention.

In the past, too, there have been murmurs about dissent against Patole’s working style. A senior congress leader shared that many in the party have been upset with Patole’s ways of taking decisions without consulting others in the party. Patole has also talked against leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena – the two parties that Congress was in alliance with in the last government. “You expect senior leaders to cement the ties. Instead, Patole has been making irresponsible statements very often,” said a party leader. 

Former chief ministers like Prithviraj Chavan and Ashok Chavan too have not been consulted during important decisions, a Congress leader said. In an interview with The Indian Express, Prithviraj Chavan said that when Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was in charge of the party in Maharashtra, there was a committee of seniors.

“The committee had former CMs, former ministers and the present and former presidents of the state unit. We used to meet every fortnight or monthly and discuss party issues. But currently, there is no such committee. There is a pressing need for such a committee to avoid issues like those that arose in Tambe’s case,” he told The Express. 

Patole on the other hand says he has been unfairly targeted and held guilty when he is not. He also claims that the decision in the case of the Tambe family was taken by the high command. “The Tambe incident was a family feud, not a party feud,” he told The Print in an interview recently.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.