Uttamrao Laxmanrao Patil alias Nanasaheb (1921 February 12 –2001 November 18) was an Indian politician and leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

[1] Uttamrao Patil was born at Waghali in Chalisgaon tehsil of Jalgaon district in a farmer family.

When Bharatiya Jana Sangh was formed at the national level in 1951, the party started planning in Maharashtra also.

On pursuation of Dattopant Thengdi, Nana Dhobale and Rambhau Godbole, Mr. Patil joined Bharatiya Jansangh.

He, along with colleagues, toured the state and brought many dedicated workers in the party who became founder pillars of the organisation.

Some of these included Baburao Vaidya, Zamatmalji, Raghoba and Rajabhau Zarkar, Sadubhau Deshpande, Kshema Thatte, Malati Paranjape, Meera Pavgi, Kisan Gharpure, Gangadharpant, Vasantrao and Bhagwanrao Patwardhan, Bhagwanrao Joshi, Baburao Dev, Pandurang Ghalsasi, Hampi Vakil, Bhausaheb Badhiye, and Bhaskar Ninave.

In 1954, Nanasaheb contested election to Maharashtra Legislative Council and won by sheer hard work of party workers.

Only four MPs from Jan Sangh were elected from the whole of India - Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Premji Asar and Shivdin Droher were the other three.

When PM Jawaharlal Nehru proposed co-op farming in India based on a Russian model, Nanasaheb opposed this in Parliament.

He formed a strong farmer lobby of MPs including Chaudhari Charansing, A G Ranga, and Purushottam Patel, and opposition became nationwide.

After some days, all opposition members of the council formed a National Democratic Alliance and Nanasaheb was chosen as its leader.

The formation of regional agriculture universities and realisation of the Employment Assurance Scheme (precursor of MNREGA) were his contributions in this period.

During Indira Gandhi's national internal emergency, most of the opposition leaders (including those of Jan Sangh) were put behind the bars.

There was a Janata wave and Congress was uprooted all over India (Indira and Sanjay Gandhi suffered a personal defeat as MP candidates).

This government was short-lived and summarily dismissed in February 1980, following Indira Gandhi's return to power in Delhi.

During this short tenure, Nanasaheb took many important decisions including the renaming of Dr Ambedkar Marathwada university and giving to the tribal people (Adivasis) ownership of the land which they had cultivated for generations.

In the same year, Nanasaheb declared his retirement from active electoral politics and vowed to work for the party only.

In 1984, he handed over the presidency to the young Gopinath Munde and declared that in future neither would he contest elections nor would he hold party positions.

Despite his resolution of not participating in active politics, Nanasaheb contested the Lok Sabha elections once more, for the final time.

Nanasaheb was not physically ready for the task, but following party dictum he contested from Erandol constituency.