Mumbai: In the past two years, Ashok Chavan often skipped events where he was expected to be present, and attended those where his presence raised eyebrows, stirring speculations of him being unhappy with the Congress and possibly defecting to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Chavan, former chief minister of Maharashtra, would always explain away these situations with platitudes such as “prior commitments”, “stuck in traffic”, and “coincidence”, that did little to put a lid on the talks about his differences with his party.
These talks reached a tipping point Monday as 66-year-old Chavan resigned as an MLA and quit the Congress.
Speaking to reporters, Maharashtra deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis did not comment on Chavan possibly joining the BJP, but said many Congress leaders were in touch with the party as they are feeling “stifled” within the Congress.
“Aage aage dekho hota hai kya (wait and watch what happens),” Fadnavis said.
Speaking to ThePrint, political commentator Hemant Desai said that if Chavan did join the BJP, the biggest benefit for the party with respect to Chavan’s resignation would be just how much it optically cripples the Congress.
“Whether it is Jitin Prasada, the Deoras or Scindias, the Congress has lost many of its long-standing dynasty families. In Maharashtra, the Chavan dynasty was a major one. Ashok Chavan was among the Maharashtra Congress’ tallest faces, having been a former CM and a former president of its state unit. His father was Maharashtra CM during the Emergency, so his exit hurts the party dearly,” Desai said.
Meanwhile, the biggest benefit for Chavan personally would be to ensure that the Adarsh Housing Society controversy, which cost him his chief ministership, is not raked up by central investigating agencies again, according to Congress leaders as well as political analysts.
Speaking to reporters, Chavan said: “Till I was in the Congress, I worked for the party honestly. I have no complaint against anyone and I have no issues with anyone personally. My next political direction will be decided in a couple of days. I haven’t decided anything yet… I haven’t taken any decision about joining the BJP yet.”
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Congress’ Chavan dynasty
Ashok Chavan and his father Shankarrao Chavan are the first and only father-son duo in Maharashtra politics to both occupy the position of the CM.
Shankarrao Chavan, a lawyer by qualification, entered state politics in 1956 as part of the state legislative council. The very next year, he was elected to the state legislative assembly from the Bhokar assembly constituency in the Nanded district and continued to be an MLA from till 1980. He first served as CM from 1975 to 1977 during the Emergency and then again from 1986 to 1988. He was the Union home minister when the Babri Masjid was pulled down in 1992.
Madhav Godbole, a former bureaucrat who was appointed a secretary in the chief minister’s office of Chavan during emergency, wrote in his book, ‘Unfinished Innings: Recollections and reflections of a civil servant,’ that he was “clever-headed, straight-forward and honest politician.”
He added, in some ways, Chavan too became a victim of the emergency.
“Twice the CM had to return to Bombay without getting an appointment with the Prime Minister, ostensibly on the ground that she was very busy. By then S.B. Chavan had got the message. Thereafter, even before leaving for Delhi, he would ask me to fix an appointment with Sanjay Gandhi. Yet another CM had been disciplined by the emergency,” he wrote.
Even as Shankarrao Chavan was a staunch Congressman, he strayed for a couple of years, joining the Sharad Pawar-led Peoples Democratic Front government formed after toppling Congress’ Vasantdada Patil government in Maharashtra. He later started the Congress Samajwadi Forum, but returned to the Congress when Indira Gandhi was voted back to power in 1980 and joined the Union cabinet.
In government circles, Shankarrao Chavan was reportedly known as ‘headmaster’ for his uprightness and bureaucratic ways.
Over the years, Maharashtra’s Nanded district became a bastion of the Chavan family with Ashok Chavan contesting his first election from the Nanded parliamentary constituency in 1987.
Today, several members of the Chavan family are active in electoral politics in the Nanded district. Ashok Chavan’s wife Ameeta won the 2014 state assembly poll from the Bhokar constituency, which Ashok Chavan contested and won in 2019.
Ashok Chavan’s now estranged brother-in-law Bhaskar Khatgaonkar was also an MP. There have also been reports of one of Ashok Chavan’s two daughters — Shreejaya — possibly entering the political fray.
In 2022, when Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra crossed Maharashtra in Nanded, Shreejaya was said to be actively involved in the preparation along with her father and was also seen walking alongside Gandhi.
Ashok Chavan started his career in the Congress as a youth Congress worker. He has served as an MP, MLA, MLC and been part of multiple state cabinets holding portfolios such as urban development, home, transport, cultural affairs, protocol, industries, mining and so on.
He was also a minister in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, comprising the undivided Shiv Sena, undivided Nationalist Congress Party and Congress, that came to power in 2019. During this stint, he was also heading the Thackeray government’s cabinet sub-committee on Maratha reservation.
He was elevated to the position of Maharashtra CM in 2008 after the incumbent Vilasrao Deshmukh resigned in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
According to Congress leaders and analysts, Chavan’s biggest contribution to the party was perhaps the Congress’ victory in the 2009 Maharashtra polls when the party improved its tally and came to power for the third straight term.
Ashok Chavan led the preparation in the state, going into the election in a pre-poll alliance with the NCP and delivered 82 of Maharashtra’s 288 assembly seats. The NCP won 62 seats and the coalition came to power as a stable government with Ashok Chavan returning as CM.
His run was, however, short-lived as the Maratha leader had to resign as CM following his alleged involvement in the controversy surrounding Mumbai’s Adarsh Housing Society.
The Adarsh controversy
Chavan stepped down as Maharashtra CM in 2010 for approving additional construction area for the Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai allegedly in exchange for two flats for relatives.
It was also alleged that 40 percent of the total flats that were originally meant to be allotted to 1999 Kargil war heroes and war widows were allotted to civilians.
The Central Bureau of Investigation filed its chargesheet in the case in July 2012, accusing Ashok Chavan of conspiracy and corruption.
In 2015, when the Devendra Fadnavis-led government was in power in Maharashtra, the CBI sought sanction from the governor to prosecute Ashok Chavan. The governor granted the sanction in February 2016, but Ashok Chavan challenged it in the Bombay High Court.
The Bombay High Court ruled in the former CM’s favour, saying the CBI had failed to present fresh material that could be converted into evidence.
“The grapevine in the Congress has been that for the past over a year, Ashok Chavan has been getting gentle reminders from some leaders that he still doesn’t have a clean chit in the case,” a senior Congress leader who did not wish to be named said.
The Adarsh controversy, however, did not dwindle Ashok Chavan’s fortunes within the Congress. The party nominated him to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha election from his home turf Nanded, which he comfortably won. In 2015, the party appointed him as the state Congress president.
Speaking to ThePrint in January 2019, the former CM had said that the Adarsh controversy had no bearing on either his or his party’s electoral performance. “Even in the last election, this issue was brought forward. Despite that, I won the election,” he said.
“This issue was created by the opposition at the time. I have always said that it was an accident that I went through. I survived it. I came back into active politics again. My party is performing well in Maharashtra. So, I don’t think it is much of an issue,” he added.
Issues within Congress
Over the last two years, Ashok Chavan gave everyone in Maharashtra’s political arena multiple opportunities to speculate about his possible resignation.
In June 2022, he was among a handful of Congress MLAs who remained absent during the trust vote of the Eknath Shinde-led government. The leader had then said that he was stuck in traffic.
In September that year, Ashok Chavan’s meeting with Devendra Fadnavis had once again sparked talks of him joining the BJP, which he dismissed as “baseless”. He had described the meeting at a political strategist’s residence as a coincidence.
In December 2022, he skipped a joint rally of MVA parties citing a prior commitment.
A second Congress leader who did not wish to be named said several old-timers of the party were upset about the Congress giving opportunities to those coming to it from other parties. He added that there is also a running grouse that the party leadership doesn’t meet party men for months.
Speaking to reporters on why he quit the Congress, Ashok Chavan said: “Everything doesn’t have to have a reason. I felt I should explore other options so I tendered my resignation.”
Prithviraj Chavan, another former Congress CM, described his colleague’s decision to leave the Congress as “sad”. He, however, clarified that the party has reached out to all MLAs and they have assured that they are loyal to the party.
“A meeting of the Congress legislative party has been convened and an appropriate whip will be issued,” Prithviraj Chavan, MLA from Karad, said.
Prithviraj Chavan described how his colleague Ashok Chavan had participated in an election strategy meeting just a day prior and had left saying how they should continue the decisions the next day (Monday).
“What went wrong overnight? One doesn’t know. What was the pressure, what was the compulsion? We all can just guess, but only he (Ashok Chavan) can tell,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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