Like most politicians from Western Maharashtra, Sambhajirao was active in the cooperative sector all his life. Early in his career he belonged to the united Congress party. Upon the split in the party in 1969, he joined the
Congress(O) rather than the
Congress(R) faction of prime minister
Indira Gandhi. He failed in his bid to win the Baramati Lok Sabha seat in the 1971 general election. In the Lok Sabha elections of 1977 after the
emergency, he contested the Baramati seat again as the candidate of the opposition
Janata alliance and won the seat. He lost it in the 1980 elections but regained it in the 1985 by-polls elections. ==References==