Congress leader Nana Patole on Friday was appointed as the President of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee. Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Nana F. Patole resigned from his post on Thursday evening. He submitted his resignation to Deputy Speaker Narhari S. Zhirwal, after a tenure of nearly 14 months in the august post.
"The Congress high-command has asked me to step down from as the Speaker, which I have done accordingly... I thank the party leadership for allowing me to serve as Speaker for the people of the state," he had said in brief remarks after quitting.
A legislator from Sakoli in Bhandara district, Patole has been named as the new state Congress head. Having a chequered political career, Patole was a Congress MLA for 3 consecutive terms - from 1999-2014 - before he left the party to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Contesting the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket, he emerged as a giantkiller by defeating Nationalist Congress Party senior leader Praful Patel.
Popularly known as 'Nana Bhau', the aggressive Patole was the earliest and first to openly revolt against Prime Minister Narendra Modi after which he resigned as BJP MP from Bhandara-Gondiya in 2017.
However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he was trounced from the Nagpur seat by Vidarbha BJP stalwart and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.