SENDING A clear message that it was in for the fight, the Congress has named Rajani Patel, who was suspended from the Rajya Sabha during the first half of the Budget Session, as its chief whip for the Upper House, as Parliament resumes for the Budget Session Monday. Patil had been suspended for allegedly videographing the House proceedings, amidst a Session marked by continuous disruptions. On February 10, Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jadgeep Dhankhar had recommended disciplinary action against Patil after a complaint was made by the BJP about a video posted on Twitter showing the Opposition agitation during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reply on the Motion of Thanks in the Upper House. She was suspended for allegedly shooting a video of the ruckus in the House and for distributing the clip. Patil termed the allegations misleading, and said she was not even given a chance to present her side. Student leader to key posts Patil is known as a trusted aide of the Gandhi family and to be close to former Congress president Sonia Gandhi. However, notwithstanding her high profile in Delhi, her involvement in the politics of her home state Maharashtra is negligible. Born in western Maharashtra’s Sangli district in 1958, she shifted to Beed in Marathwada after she married former Maharashtra minister of state Ashok Patil. Daughter of freedom fighter Atmaram Patil, she was also known as a foster daughter of former Maharashtra CM, late Vasantdada Patil. She started her political career with the NSUI in 1978 and worked at the national level of the Congress’s student organisation as well. In 1991, Patil was elected to the Beed zilla parishad and worked for five years. In the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, she sought a ticket from the party but was denied. Miffed, she joined the BJP and contested from Beed, and won. She however did not last long in the BJP and returned to the Congress in 1998. Since then, Patil has served on a number of government bodies as well as party posts. She was the president of the Maharashtra Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal, director of the Maharashtra state co-operative bank, central social work board, among others. In 2012, after the death of former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh, the party nominated her to a vacant post Rajya Sabha seat, and she was elected unopposed. She went on to win the award for the best parliamentarian in 2013. Her tenure ended in April 2018. In 2021, when Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Satav died from Covid-19 and his seat fell vacant, a number of Congress leaders, including Mukul Wasnik and Prithviraj Chavan, were considered for the seat, but eventually, Patil was given preference, and she was back in Parliament. Patil’s name was believed to be among the 12 people the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) had sent to former Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for appointment to the Maharashtra Legislative Council. As Koshyari sat on the list, Patil was sent to the Rajya Sabha. She was then also made the party’s in-charge of Himachal Pradesh. Currently, she is the Congress in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir.
