Defection becomes a talking point when the leader involved is one of his/her kind. Some 15 years ago, then opposition leader in the Assembly, Narayan Rane, staged a coup against the Shiv Sena making the ruling Congress his new party. It was the biggest ever event of that year, followed next year by Raj Thackeray's break-up with the Sena. Eknath Khadse, who shared opposition benches with Rane, was then in Sena's partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Now Rane is in the BJP and Khadse chose the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to be his abode to have a last hurrah.

Last year, another sitting opposition leader in the Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil stepped into Rane's shoes by defecting to the BJP. But unlike Rane, he waited for some time before the BJP got his son elected as an MP and inducted him as a minister a couple of months before the 2019 elections. A host of power-hungry others from the opposition parties lined up before the BJP bosses to get inducted last year, only to be disappointed at the turn of events that changed the state's politics completely.