Premium
This is an archive article published on February 7, 2024

As Ajit Pawar’s NCP says doors open for everyone, Sharad Pawar camp puts on brave face, says ‘ghar wapsi’ of MLAs soon

Election Commission on Tuesday recognised the rebel group of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar as the real NCP, allotted it the ‘clock’ symbol

Ajit Pawar Sharad pawar NCP EC rulingAjit Pawar’s camp dismissed the chances of MLAs exiting their ranks. (File)

EVEN as the Ajit Pawar-led NCP said its doors are open for those wanting to join its ranks in the wake of the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s decision recognising it as the real NCP, Sharad Pawar’s party, which now faces the challenge of keeping its flock together, is putting up a brave front. The setback notwithstanding, the party claimed there is unrest in Ajit Pawar’s ranks, which will see their “ghar wapsi”.

“There is unrest in Ajit Pawar’s camp. Many MLAs are in touch with us and they have expressed their wish to cross over to our side… There will soon be a ‘ghar wapsi’,” said former minister Anil Deshmukh, who is with Sharad Pawar’s camp.

On Tuesday, the Sharad Pawar camp landed in a turmoil as the ECI recognised the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar as the real NCP and gave it control over the party name and ‘clock’ symbol.

Story continues below this ad

Deshmukh claimed not only MLAs who joined hands with Ajit Pawar are unhappy, even BJP MLAs are upset. “Our party is intact and will remain so even after the EC verdict. But our rivals have a problem on hand. Many MLAs from our rivals will join our ranks before the elections. As of now, they are with their parties as they need funds for development of their constituencies. But that will change soon,” the former minister said.

The Ajit Pawar-led NCP, however, pooh-phoohed the idea of MLAs exiting its ranks. “Now that we are the real NCP, there is no question of anyone exiting our ranks. In fact, there will be migration to our fold soon,” NCP chief spokesperson Umesh Patil told this paper.

Patil said Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had been saying that the party’s doors are open for one and all. “Even now after the EC verdict, he has maintained the same position. Our doors are open for everyone,” he said.

The NCP said 95 per cent of the party was already with Ajit Pawar. “Ninety-five per cent of the legislative and organisational party is with Ajit Pawar. A handful of them have a problem due to their political convenience. Some leaders want to contest elections from a particular constituency, which is with the BJP or Shinde Sena. They fear they will not get to contest and, therefore, they are not with us. Everyone has political ambitions which we cannot deny,” he said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories

Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments
Advertisement

You May Like

Advertisement