A day after sealing a deal, Western Maharashtra's sugar lobby leader and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Harshvardhan Patil officially announced that he, along with his family and supporters from Indapur, will be joining the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party. He said the BJP had expressed its inability to field him from Indapur in the Assembly elections because the seat was already allotted to the Ajit Pawar faction's sitting MLA Dattatreya Bharne. In the coming weeks, Patil will be challenging two-time winner Bharne.

“All my supporters want me to contest from Indapur. I met Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis to discuss it. At the end of our discussion, it was clear that the seat would be contested by NCP's (AP) sitting MLA Bharne. I was given an alternative which my supporters didn't approve of,” he told media persons in Indapur on Friday, adding that, meantime, Sharad Pawar had asked him to join his party.