After health minister’s ‘vomit’ comment: NCP threatens to quit Mahayuti unless Tanaji Sawant is sacked

''Either Sawant remains in the Mahayuti Cabinet or our party. If he is not immediately sacked, we will quit the government. Our national president Ajit Pawar too should immediately quit the cabinet,'' NCP spokeperson Umesh Patil told The Indian Express.

"I never got along with Congress and NCP all my life. In the cabinet meeting, when we sit next to each other, I come out of the meeting and vomit," Sawant said.

Hours after Maharashtra health minister Tanaji Sawant of the Shinde Sena said he vomits after sitting with NCP ministers in cabinet meetings, the Ajit Pawar-led party threatened on Friday to quit the Mahayuti Government.

”Either Sawant remains in the Mahayuti Cabinet or our party. If he is not immediately sacked, we will quit the government. Our national president Ajit Pawar too should immediately quit the cabinet,” NCP spokesperson Umesh Patil told The Indian Express.

The NCP spokesperson said Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar will not attend any cabinet meeting until Chief Minister Eknath Shinde takes a decision on Sawant.

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“Apart from our party president, all of our ministers should boycott cabinet meetings till Sawant is sacked. We will not even accept Sawant’s apology or statement that he was misinterpreted. We want him out immediately,” Patil said.

During a public event in Dharashiv on Thursday, Sawant said, “I never got along with Congress and NCP all my life. In the cabinet meeting, when we sit next to each other, I come out of the meeting and vomit.”

State NCP chief Sunil Tatkare said, “Who is Tanaji Sawant? The BJP and its top leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have made us part of the alliance after a long, thoughtful process…”

Reacting to Sawant’s statement, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said that Ajit Pawar has lost all self respect and there was growing discomfort within the ranks of the Shinde-led government.

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Tapase expressed disbelief at how Ajit Pawar’s party could tolerate such an insult. “I never imagined that Ajit Dada, who once commanded immense respect within the NCP, would compromise his self respect for power,” Tapase said.

He further criticised Ajit Pawar’s decision to break away from Sharad Pawar’s party, questioning the price of such a move, which appears to have led to public humiliation rather than political gain.

Tapase pointed out that dissatisfaction within the ruling coalition had been simmering for some time. The RSS and BJP have publicly held Ajit Pawar responsible for the BJP’s setbacks in the recent Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, further straining relations in the Mahayuti alliance.

The growing discomfort among Shinde Sena members over Ajit Pawar’s inclusion in the government was starkly revealed through Sawant’s remarks.

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Ajit Pawar, who justified his decision to break away from Sharad Pawar and join the Shinde government as a move towards development, had been supported by senior leaders like Praful Patel, Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare.

However, Tapase questioned why these leaders remained silent in the face of such blatant disrespect. “Sawant’s statement has effectively erased Ajit Dada’s political standing and yet, his own party members remain silent,” Tapase said.

He also took aim at Chhagan Bhujbal’s earlier assertion that the NCP (SP) will secure 80 to 90 seats in the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections. “Given the current state of affairs, Ajit Dada’s NCP might not even secure 25 seats, and it’s this desperation that has led to such humiliating treatment,” Tapase added.

Recalling the past, Tapase spoke about how sitting next to Ajit Pawar used to be a matter of pride among party cadres when the latter was still with the NCP(SP). “Today, it is disheartening to see him endure such indignity,” Tapase stated, hinting that Sawant’s words likely reflect the sentiments of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Manoj Dattatrye More

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

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