Maharashtra Legislative Assembly speaker Nana Patole on Thursday submitted his resignation to deputy speaker Narhari Zirwal. This move comes after Patole's meeting with the central leadership on Wednesday.
The 57-year-old, who was elected to the state assembly in 2019, is likely to be appointed as Maharashtra Congress president replacing Balasaheb Thorat, who is also the Revenue Minister in Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's Cabinet.
Zirwal on Thursday evening took to Twitter and posted a picture of him accepting Patole's resignation.
Patole hails from the Vidarbha region and belongs to the politically dominant OBC Kunbi community. Reportedly, the community supported the grand old party in the 2019 Assembly elections.
Patole started as a Congress leader but later shifted to the Bhartiya Janata Party. Riding on the Modi wave, he was elected as BJP MP in 2014 from the Bhandara-Gondia constituency but later quit the party by criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After coming back to Congress, he unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Nagpur against Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari. Later, he was elected as an MLA from Sakoli constituency. Patole was made the Legislative Assembly speaker when the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) -- an unlikely tripartite government of Shiv Sena, Congress and the Nationalist Congress party (NCP) -- came into power.
