Mumbai: The Congress has failed to convince party leader Vishal Patil to withdraw his nomination as independent candidate from the Sangli Lok Sabha seat. The deadline for nomination withdrawal ended on Monday. Voting will be held for the Sangli seat in the third phase on May 7. Vishal is the grandson of former Maharashtra CM Vasantdada Patil. Shiv Sena UBT’s Chandrahar Patil is the Maha Vikas Adhadi’s official candidate here.
Vishal’s candidature has made the Sangli seat a three cornered battle between him, Chandrahar and sitting MP Sanjaykaka Patil, who is seeking the third term as the BJP candidate.
An official from the Congress said that the party’s state leaders tried to convince Vishal to withdraw from the election. “Now that he has defied the party decision, state Congress president Nana Patole will soon announce action against him,” the official said.
Vishal had contested the 2019 candidate as the candidate of ‘Swabhimani Paksha’ led by farmers’ leader Raju Shetti and supported by both the Congress and the then unified NCP. However, he lost the election by 1.64 lakh votes. Interestingly, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi’s Gopichand Padalkar had received more than three lakh votes.
A supporter of Vishal Patil said, “The Congress would have won the seat easily if Vishal had contested as the Congress candidate. Shiv Sena UBT does not have organisational strength in Sangli and Chandrahar Patil is not as strong candidate as Vishal. Even as an independent, he will win.”
The Shiv Sena UBT candidate has started campaigning for the seat. But no local Congress leader has so far joined his campaign.
Vishal Patil claimed that the local Congress cadre is with him. “I am contesting the election because our people insisted that I should not back out. We were hoping that the Congress will give me AB form and I will be the official candidate of the MVA. But for some inexplicable reason, I was denied the official ticket. Now I am people’s candidate and I will still win,” he said.
