Nana Patole

Nana Patole was born on June 5, 1963, in Gondia, Maharashtra to Falgunrao Patole and Mirabai Patole.^[4] His father worked as an agricultural officer, while his mother was a housewife. Patole completed his primary education in Sakoli and pursued his secondary and higher secondary education in schools in Gondia and Chandrapur.^[5][6] He completed his college education BA from Manoharbhai Patel College (MBPC) in Sakoli, Maharashtra.^[7][1]

He focused on the issues faced by farmers and marginalized communities. In response to the government's Forest-Land Act, Patole organized an anti-encroachment march on September 5, 2022 and was detained and later went on hunger strike in jail to seek justice.^[8][9] Later government suspended the encroachment removal program.^{[9][10][11][12]}

He takes the credit on completion of Durgabai Doh dam project on the Chulband River, which began in 1995 and was finished in 2015, providing irrigation to 9,634 hectares of farmland and benefiting multiple villages.^[13]

As a member of Indian National Congress party, he served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Lakhandur Assembly constituency after delimitation he served as member of Sakoli from 2009. He also held the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for a short term. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he contested as the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Bhandara–Gondiya Lok Sabha constituency and secured victory, defeating then Union Minister Praful Patel of Nationalist Congress Party by a margin of 149,254 votes.^[14] In 2018, Patole resigned from his Lok Sabha membership by submitting his resignation letter to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and subsequently rejoined the Indian National Congress.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]}