Day after SC’s Maharashtra verdict, state Cong chief Patole meets Rahul Gandhi

Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole on Friday met former party chief Rahul Gandhi and is learnt to have discussed the political situation in the state in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement on last year’s political crisis that led to the fall of the MVA government.

A five-judge Constitution bench unanimously held on Thursday that it cannot restore the then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray as the former chief minister resigned without facing a floor test in June last year.

Sources said Patole also apprised Gandhi of the political fallout of the SC verdict and ways to further strengthen the party in Maharashtra.

The Congress is in alliance with the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and is seeking to contest the next Assembly elections in late 2024 together.