Months after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, former Congress MLA Kunal Patil-controlled Jawahar Cooperative Cotton Mill in north Maharashtra’s Dhule district is likely to get Rs 156.9 crore restructuring loan from National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).
The Maharashtra cabinet on Tuesday cleared the proposal to recommend the same to the NCDC under the state’s scheme to modernize and rehabilitate cooperative spinning mills.
In October 2023, when Patil was the Congress MLA, the mill was raided by the Income Tax (I-T) department. The raid continued for almost three days. The raid was then conducted after Patil was given the responsibility of handling party campaign in Lok Sabha constituencies in north Maharashtra and Vidarbha. Speaking to reporters then, he had claimed that the audit of the mill was completed and there were no discrepancies.
Patil is the son of veteran Congress leader late Rohidas Patil. Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi during the second leg of his Bharat Jodo Yatra had visited ailing Rohidas Patil and even called Sonia Gandhi from his house.
After the death of Rohidas Patil in September 2024, Kunal contested the 2024 Assembly polls from the Congress but lost to BJP’s Raghvendra Bhadane-Patil. In July 2025, he decided to switch to the BJP.
“The state government has merely given its recommendation for the restructuring loan. It has not given any money from its treasury,” said an official from the textiles department.
This is not the first time that Maharashtra government has used similar guarantees for cooperative mills, run by political figures aligned to the BJP.
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In July 2023, guarantee to loan amounting to Rs 548 crore from the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) was given. The beneficiaries of that decision were the sugar factories controlled by the leaders of ruling BJP, which included Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil, Harshvardhan Patil, Dhananjay Mahadik, Abhimanyu Pawar and Raosaheb Danve. Another Rs 436 crore loan to mills of BJP politicians was guaranteed by the state government in April 2025.
