When the Mohite-Patil father-son duo, Vijaysinh and Ranjitsinh and quit the BJP to return to the NCP (SP) this year, it worried the saffron party. A similar concern was felt in the undivided NCP circles when the powerful duo had left the party for a stint in the BJP in 2019. Such is the influence of the Mohite-Patil family—they control land swathes of land and runs factories and a large educational empire in Akluj.
Switching parties isn’t new for members of the family have moved across various major parties in Maharashtra. If Vijaysinh and his son Ranjitsinh have swiftly changed loyalties from the NCP to the BJP and back, his nephew Dhavalsinh was a former Shiv Sena member who moved to the Congress.
Brothers Pratapsinh and Vijaysinh entered politics in the 1980s albeit in different parties. Vijaysinh began his career as the sarpanch of Akluj and then represented Malshiras in the state assembly between 1980 and 2009. In 2003, he was sworn in as the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra and has served as a cabinet minister for public works, tourism and rural development for several years. During his time in the assembly, Vijaysinh carried ahead his father’s legacy and established sugar factories, dairies, poultry farms, schools colleges, nursing and engineering colleges and poultry farms, bringing economic development and employment to the area. Known to be very close to Sharad Pawar, Vijaysinh won the Lok Sabha elections from Madha near Solapur in 2009. His son Ranjitsinh is a former member of the legislative council who followed his father to the BJP but returned to the NCP (SP).
Under his brother’s guidance, Pratapsinh took his first steps in politics as a member of the Youth Congress in 1985 but was nominated to the Vidhan Parishad in 1997 as a BJP member with help from Gopinath Munde. He was sworn in as the Minister for Cooperation in the Shiv Sena-led government in the late 1990s and then subsequently was elected to the 13th Lok Sabha.
Vijaysinh’s nephew Dhairyasheel quit the BJP on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections to join NCP (SP) when the BJP denied him a ticket. He was warmly welcomed into the party and although he had never contested the assembly or parliamentary elections earlier, he won by a good margin. Another nephew who is Viyasinh’s political rival for supremacy in the area is Dhavalsinh, who has been with the Shiv Sena and then moved to the Congress in 2021. To counter his cousin who was contesting from Madha, he lent support to the BJP candidate.
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