On August 23, more than a thousand people gathered at a ground behind the Shahu sugar cooperative in Kagal, near the Karnataka border in Kolhapur district. The sugar cooperative was launched a few decades ago by Vikramsinh Raje Ghatge, the late head of the Kagal royal family. The meeting was convened by his son Samarjeet, who is close to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Samarjeet wanted to decide his future course of action after it became clear that the Kagal assembly seat would go to sitting MLA and minister Hasan Mushrif of the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) in the upcoming polls.
The Ghatges and Mushrifs are known political opponents. In 2019, Samarjeet had contested as an independent against Mushrif (that time the seat went to the undivided Shiv Sena which was in an alliance with the BJP) and finished second with over 88,000 votes. Now with the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP being part of the ruling Mahayuti along with the BJP and the Shinde faction of the Sena, the BJP is unable to deliver on the promise it made to Samarjeet that he would be the party's candidate from Kagal in the 2024 assembly elections.
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