Is Ravindra Dhangekar Set To Exit Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena? Buzz Grows In Pune

Former Kasba Peth MLA Ravindra Dhangekar, who had joined Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena in March this year, is likely to quit the party.

Speculation is rife that Shinde had asked Dhangekar to stop targeting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Pune. However, he did not heed his party chief's command. He continued attacking Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation and Cooperation Murlidhar Mohol over the Jain Trust land sale in Model Colony.

Dhangekar has also removed the mention of Shiv Sena from his X (formerly Twitter) header and written, “Punekar First. Satyameva Jayate.”

Apart from attacking Mohol, Dhangekar recently also claimed that a staffer in Maharashtra Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil's office has links with fugitive gangster Nilesh Ghaywal.

Following this, the Pune unit of the BJP said that it would complain to its leadership against Dhangekar. “The accusations made by Dhangekar are baseless. Whatever he is doing (targeting Patil) is for publicity. He has switched so many parties that he forgets he is now with a party that is in alliance with the BJP,” said Ghate. “We expect that the senior leadership of his party will reprimand him. If he continues to resort to such conduct, we will respond in our own way,” he added.

Dhangekar lost two consecutive elections

Dhangekar was elected to the Legislative Assembly as a Congress candidate from the Kasba Peth constituency in the bypoll held in 2023. However, he lost the seat in the 2024 Assembly polls as the BJP’s Hemant Rasane triumphed.

Before that, Dhangekar was defeated in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Pune after being given an opportunity by the Congress. He lost the Lok Sabha polls to the BJP’s Murlidhar Mohol.

He was first elected as a corporator of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on a Shiv Sena ticket. He followed Raj Thackeray after the formation of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and continued to get elected to the civic body. In 2017, he joined the Congress after being sidelined by the MNS.