Even though he is busy gearing up for a triangular fight in the Karad South assembly constituency, the larger battle between his dying Congress party and the ascendant BJP is never far from former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan's mind. While he blames BJP for its 'vicious efforts' to obliterate Congress from India's political landscape, he does not spare those who defected to BJP either.

Chavan says the defectors have not joined the BJP and Sena for the betterment of the public as they claim, but merely to escape the punitive action the government threatens them with for alleged financial irregularities in institutes these leaders have been controlling for decades.