65-year-old Ashok Chavan has said that his choice to depart from Congress was independent and refrained from attributing specific reasons for his exit.
Ending his 38-year-old relationship, the Former Maharashtra CM resigned from the Congress on Monday and joined the BJP at a time when the party needed him the most.
Born into a political family, Ashok Chavan, son of former Maharashtra CM Shankarrao Chavan, started his political journey as a student leader at the University of Pune. In 1987–89, a 29-year-old Chavan held the post of Member of Parliament from Nanded Lok Sabha constituency—a seat held by his father since 1980.
In 1992, the Maratha strongman was elected MLC to the Maharashtra Legislative Council. He was later promoted to Minister of State for Public Works, Urban Development, and Home in March 1993. 2003 CM Vilasrao Deshmukh appointed Chavan as Minister for Transport, Ports, Cultural Affairs, and Protocol.
The following year, he was given the Industries, Mining, Cultural Affairs & Protocol portfolio in the Maharashtra cabinet.
In the aftermath of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, Vilasrao Deshmukh took moral responsibility and offered to resign, after which Chavan was elected as Chief Minister of Maharashtra. After winning assembly elections in 2009 from the Bhokar seat in Nanded. Congress President Sonia Gandhi again nominated Chavan as the state’s Chief Minister.
Adarsh Scam:
The Adarsh scam was unearthed in November 2010, which forced Chavan to resign. The scam is related to a 31-storey apartment complex called the Adarsh Housing Society, built in Colaba in South Mumbai (a posh locality) on land that belonged to the Ministry of Defence.
In 2010, it was revealed that politicians, some bureaucrats, and military officials conspired to violate rules concerning land ownership and other norms to get flats allotted to themselves and their relatives. When the matter came to light, some of Chavan’s relatives were featured on the list of beneficiaries when Chavan was the Maharashtra Chief Minister. Following this, Chavan was forced to resign, and a chargesheet was also filed in which he appeared as accused.
On January 11, 2018, a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kaul put a hold on “further proceedings” pending before the Special Judge for CBI Cases, Mumbai. Since then, the Mumbai Sessions Court has not proceeded further with the case.
In 2014, despite the Modi wave and a label of corruption, the Congress party fielded him as a candidate for the Lok Sabha Elections. And the decision proved right; he won the election by a decent margin. The very next year, he was appointed as the head of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.
In 2019, Chavan lost his first-ever election. Chavan contested the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections from Nanded Constituency and lost the election to BJP’s Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar. Because Prakash Ambedkar led VBA played the spoilsport. The collective vote share of VBA and Congress was more than that of the winning BJP candidate
He later fought the assembly elections and won the Bhokar seat in Nanded with a margin of 97,445 votes. Chavan was given the PWD portfolio in the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government.
65-year-old Ashok Chavan has said that his choice to depart from Congress was independent and refrained from attributing specific reasons for his exit.
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