Ashok Chavan

Chavan won his first election on the Congress ticket nearly 40 years ago, and is the son of Congress veteran Shankarrao Chavan, who served in senior positions in the party.

Sources said the BJP, which has been at work since it lost the 2019 Assembly polls in Maharashtra, and has already engineered defections in the NCP and Shiv Sena, also opened channels with Chavan around five years ago.

Since then, several incidents involving Chavan have kept rumours of his probable exit alive. In June 2022, when cross-voting cost the Congress Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council seats, fingers had been pointed at Chavan.

A month later, the senior leader along with 11 MLAs close to him had not turned up for the trust vote sought by the BJP-Shinde Sena government, after toppling the government of NCP, Congress and Uddhav Sena. Chavan had claimed at the time that they had got caught in traffic and were not able to get to the Assembly on time.

He was named by the Congress to the post in the wake of the 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, leading to the exit of then CM Vilasrao Deshmukh. Many in the Congress were apprehensive that Chavan, a relative junior, would not be able to hold his own against ally NCP’s doyen Sharad Pawar, but Chavan had proved his critics wrong, quickly bringing both the administration and Congress under his control.

After the 2009 Assembly elections, when the Congress-NCP won, the NCP reportedly pushed back against Chavan being made CM, putting forward the name of Sushilkumar Shinde instead. However, AICC president Sonia Gandhi is believed to have prevailed and stuck with Chavan.

That tenure came to an abrupt end, though, due to the Adarsh Housing Society Scam. Accused of misusing his office to help kith and kin get flats under the Adarsh housing scheme meant for war veterans, Chavan had vehemently denied the charges and challenged them in court.

However, the high command asked him to step down, arguing that the allegations – at a time when the UPA government at the Centre was fighting a coordinated anti-corruption campaign – were hurting the party. The BJP also made the alleged Adarsh scam a poll issue in successive elections, with Devendra Fadnavis taking the lead.Following his father into politics, Chavan had his electoral debut from the Nanded Lok Sabha seat in 1987.

With his heart in Maharashtra politics, he returned to the state soon after, and in 1992, became an MLC, and later, Minister of State for Urban Development, PWD and Home. Under the Vilasrao Deshmukh-led government of Congress-NCP, Chavan was Minister of Transport, Cultural Affairs and Protocol.

In 2004, Chavan was again made minister, this time with the important portfolios of Industries, Mining and Cultural Affairs.

After his two short-lived CM stints, Chavan’s career got a boost when he won from the Nanded Lok Sabha seat amidst the 2014 Narendra Modi wave elections. The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate at the time, Modi himself campaigned in Nanded, but could not stop the Congress leader from winning.

In 2019, however, Chavan failed to retain the seat, losing to the BJP’s Pratap Patil Chikhlikar by 20,146 votes. He then contested the 2019 Assembly polls, and won from the Bhokar seat, which he had represented when he became CM in 2009.