The Congress officially announced on Friday in Mumbai that it has replaced Nana Patole with a low-profile, one-term MLA from Buldhana called Harshwardhan Vasantrao Sapkal as president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC).

In a related development, the Congress also appointed MLA Vijay Waddettiwar as its Maharashtra state legislative party leader.

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In terms of caste arithmetic, Waddettiwar is an OBC leader, while Harshwardhan Sapkal is from the Maratha community and outgoing Nana Patole is an OBC leader from Vidarbha. Earlier, Wadettiwar was the Leader of the Opposition.

Significantly, the appointments of Sapkal and Wadettiwar balance the caste equation within the Maharashtra Congress state leadership since there is one Maratha and one OBC leader running the Maharashtra unit of the party. Both leaders are from the Vidarbha region, which used to be a former Congress stronghold that was lost to the BJP.

According to sources in the Maharashtra Congress, Sapkal is a low-profile leader, who has climbed the ladder from the ground upwards and is known to have earned the trust of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over the last few years.

“Sapkal is an organisation man. He keeps a low profile and quietly works on the ground. He is someone who has trust in the grassroots systems of panchayati raj. He has worked extensively with tribals. Every year, he spends the day of Lakshmi Puja during Diwali with the tribal population in his district. He is very frank as a leader, and always very clear about what he can and cannot do,” a Maharashtra Congress leader said.

Sapkal hails from Buldhana district in the Vidarbha region. He began his political career in the Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NUSI). He grew from being the Zilla Parishad Chairman of Buldhana in the early 2000s to becoming an MLA representing the Buldhana assembly constituency in 2014.

Sapkal represented Buldhana until 2019 when he lost the election. Presently, he is the president of the Congress’ Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Raj Sanghatan as well as a secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC).