Congress’s western wall crumbles

Once a symbol of rural Congress strength, Thopate’s move to the BJP leaves the party adrift in Western Maharashtra.

Pune: The Congress party’s slow erosion in Maharashtra gathered speed last week when Sangram Thopate, a former MLA from Bhor in Pune district, took decisive steps toward joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Thopate is expected to join the BJP on Tuesday. For a generation, the Thopates - Sangram and his father Anantrao - had been linchpins of Congress’s rural network, stitching together a web of cooperatives, educational institutions and loyal cadres. Their departure marks not just a local loss but a symbolic retreat of Congress influence across western Maharashtra, a region once considered its fortress.

The blow is not merely psychological. The Congress’s footprint in Pune district has been shrinking for years, culminating in a complete rout in the recent Assembly elections. Not a single Congress MLA was elected across Pune city and district in the Assembly polls last year. Thopate himself, a three-time MLA (2009, 2014, and 2019) bit the dust in 2024 after a rebellion by Kiran Dagde, a former BJP corporator, which split the Congress vote and gifted the seat to Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Ravindra Dhangekar, another Congress hopeful, was trounced in the Lok Sabha election by over 150,000 votes before defecting to Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. The exit of Sangram Thopate merely seals an unfolding collapse.

Leaderless party

In its western heartland, Congress now finds itself leaderless and listless. After the Assembly debacle, the party high command had removed state chief Nana Patole, replacing him with Harshvardhan Sapkal, a mild-mannered former MLA little known even within party circles. In a state where political charisma and mass appeal are essential, Sapkal’s quiet religiosity offers scant comfort. Meanwhile, the few remaining figures - Vishal Patil in Sangli, Vishwajeet Kadam in Palus Kadegaon and Satej Patil in Kolhapur - provide little hope. Vishal Patil’s loyalty is suspect while Satej Patil’s influence rarely strays beyond Kolhapur’s borders. Kadam, once seen as a rising star, has failed to catch fire even after a Lok Sabha bid in Pune city a decade ago.

In this grim landscape, Thopate’s defection is more than another desertion. It underscores a structural decay that Congress seems unable to arrest. Thopate was not merely a Congress loyalist but part of its historic anti-Pawar axis in Pune district. His father, Anantrao Thopate, a former minister and once a chief ministerial hopeful, led the faction opposing Sharad Pawar’s dominance in the region. In the 1999 Assembly election, Sonia Gandhi herself campaigned in Bhor to boost Anantrao’s candidacy. Yet even then, Pawar’s subterranean political maneuvers torpedoed Thopate’s ambitions.

Pawar’s olive branch

Ironically, political enmity between the Pawar and Thopate families finally thawed during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Facing an existential threat in Baramati, Sharad Pawar personally visited the aging Anantrao Thopate to secure his support for daughter Supriya Sule’s campaign. Old rivalries were buried, but too late to resurrect Congress’s fortunes.

The Thopate family’s clout rested not just on electoral wins but also on their mastery of the cooperative sector - a vital source of rural patronage. Their Rajgad Cooperative Sugar Factory was once a powerhouse but slipped into financial distress between 2014 and 2019. In a telling twist, it was then-Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP who reportedly helped rescue it. That act of quiet generosity perhaps sowed the seeds of Thopate’s eventual migration to the saffron fold.

Sour relationship

Congress’s relationship with Sangram Thopate had frayed long before. In January 2020, when he was denied the post of district party president, his supporters stormed the Congress Bhavan in Pune and vandalized it – an act that hardened mutual resentments. Despite his loyalty and stature, Thopate was consistently passed over for ministerial positions. At best, he was floated as a possible Speaker of the Assembly, a consolation prize that he could not even claim.

Now, with his adhesion to the BJP, Chief Minister Fadnavis stands to gain a seasoned lieutenant in Pune district. Thopate’s entry into the BJP not only boosts the party’s credibility among rural voters but also strengthens its cooperative network - a key plank for political mobilisation in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, for the Congress, the desertion leaves an aching void in an area where it once held unassailable sway.

It also highlights the deeper malaise afflicting the party nationwide: an aging leadership disconnected from its grassroots, slow to reward loyalty and blind to the new dynamics of regional politics. In Maharashtra’s fluid political market, where alliances shift like monsoon winds, Congress remains rigid and adrift - hemmed in by nostalgia and weakened by inertia.

The Thopates’ departure does not merely close a chapter. It spells the end of Congress’s relevance in a region that once crowned its leaders.