| Patil, had left the Congress party in 2003 and contested against the Congress candidate in the Solapur parliamentary constituency in September 2003 on a BJP ticket. |
| Congress candidate Anandrao Deokatte, who contested from chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde's home constituency lost the election. |
| In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, while Patil did not contest again his continuance in the BJP is attributed as a strong reason why Shinde's wife Ujjwala lost from this constituency, being the second loss in succession for the Congress. |
| Speaking to mediapersons immediately after the state legislative assembly and council wound up for the day Patil said that he had always been in the Congress and hence it was only about him returning back to the party he belonged to. |
| When asked as to what prompted him to leave the party in the first place Patil said: "At that point in time I felt there was too much of factional infighting within the Congress. Hence I left. I do not see this as an issue today. Moreover, local level issues of the Solapur region were responsible for the anti-incumbency wave during the last two elections." |
| Meanwhile, the state legislative council today cleared the appropriation bill without opposition and passed it back to the legislative assembly before wining up the days proceedings. |
| The lower house for once witnessed bonhomie amongst both ruling treasury benches as well as the opposition, with the latter clearing the state government proposed legislations without much discussion or debates. |
| This was accomplished in part by state finance minsiter Jayant Patil's announcement that he would permit all members of the legislative assembly to spent the entire corpus of Rs 80 lakh each that was promised to them earlier as part of their MLA fund, but subsequently curtailed to less than 50 per cent. |
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