Vishal Patil, the newly-elected independent MP from Maharashtra’s Sangli Lok Sabha constituency, on Thursday extended his support to the Congress.

Patil is the grandson of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vasantdada Patil and a former Congress leader. He contested the Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate after the Sangli seat was allotted to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) in the seat-sharing arrangement with Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi.

The alliance in the state primarily includes former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar).

Results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, declared on Tuesday, showed that the Maha Vikas Aghadi won 30 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, with the Congress securing 13 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party along with its allies – the Shiv Sena and the Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s faction of the Nationalist Congress Party – won 17 seats.

Patil won the Sangli seat by a margin of 1,00,053 votes ahead of BJP candidate Sanjay Patil.

On Thursday, Vishal Patil met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in New Delhi and lent his support to the party. He also met Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

In a post on social media, Kharge welcomed Vishal Patil and said that Maharashtra defeated the “politics of treachery, arrogance and division”.

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said that the party “always had deep roots in Sangli”.

He added: “This is a truly fitting move which takes the legacy of INC [Congress] stalwart Sh. Vasantdada Patil ji forward!”.

Vishal Patil also said that he sent a letter of support to Kharge, NDTV reported. “It did not become possible to contest on a Congress ticket, but people have voted for me taking into consideration the ideology of Congress,” he told reporters. “I can’t forget this. Hence, after getting elected, I extended my support to Congress.”

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