In Nana Patole, the Congress has a man incharge in Maharashtra, who is ever ready for political combat. He is very unlike the earlier breed of suave and softspoken Congress leaders in Maharashtra.

On #TheHotSpot with Rahul Shrivastava, Nana Patole comes across as a straight talking Congressman willing to get his hands dirty in the cutthroat world of politics.

Nana Patole doesn't hesitate to take names. He alleges that Praful Patel had mastered the "setting" of politics in Delhi, and tried to undermine him as an MP. Incidentally, Patole had defeated Patel from the BhandaraGondiya Lok Sabha seat in 2014.

The rebellious streak runs in Patole's blood. After being a twoterm Congress MLA from Sakoli, he joined the BJP in 2009.

But in 2017, Patole resigned as Lok Sabha MP after questioning his party's government. In the interview, Patole describes the sequence of events in a meeting between MPs and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2017.

Within two days of quitting the BJP, Rahul Gandhi reached out to Patole and brought him into the Congress. Patole recalls Rahul Gandhi's words who called him "a good fellow".

Since then Patole's stock has been rising in the Congress. He was the Assembly Speaker of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. Since February 2012, Patole has been the Maharashtra Congress chief.