Rohit Pawar claims 19 MLAs of Ajit camp eager to crossover, NCP denies

Enthused by the election results in the state which put Maha Vikas Aghadi much ahead of Mahayuti, Rohit Pawar, like in the past, tried to float another balloon of possible migration of MLAs to the Sharad Pawar camp.

While NCP (SP) legislator Rohit Pawar said on Wednesday that 18-19 MLAs belonging to Ajit Pawar-led NCP were eager to cross over to their side, the latter dismissed his claim as kite flying. (File)

WHILE NCP (SP) legislator Rohit Pawar said on Wednesday that 18-19 MLAs belonging to Ajit Pawar-led NCP were eager to cross over to their side, the latter dismissed his claim as kite flying.

Enthused by the election results in the state which put Maha Vikas Aghadi much ahead of Mahayuti, Rohit Pawar, like in the past, tried to float another balloon of possible migration of MLAs to the Sharad Pawar camp.

“At least 19 MLAs of Ajit Pawar’s party are in touch with our party chief. Also, 12 MLAs of Ajit Pawar’s party are in touch with BJP. In next few days, the picture regarding what decision the MLAs take will become clear,” Rohit Pawar told ABP Majha, a Marathi news channel.

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He also laid down conditions for giving entry to the MLAs belongs to Ajit Pawar-led NCP. ”The decision regarding who should be taken in the party and who should not be, will be taken by our party. Those who have used bad language while criticising our party chief will not be taken in the party. But those who have not said anything about our party chief will be given entry,” Rohit said.

The MLA added, “We want to tell our party chief that he should give priority to only those MLAs who had remained loyal to party during its difficult times. But those who quit our party for their personal gains and those who were forced by BJP to enter its fold should be given second priority only.”

Reacting to Rohit Pawar’s claim, Umesh Patil, chief spokesperson of NCP, said, “He (Rohit Pawar) thinks politics is a child’s play. And therefore he keeps making childish comments.” Patil said Rohit Pawar has been making such claims on and off. “He has indulged in such kite flying in the past as well. This might be their strategy to cause fissures in our ranks. But such strategies will not work as all MLAs are strongly supporting Ajit Pawar,” he said.

Patil said MLAs and the party is as united as it was before. ”One loss will not deter us. Also, it should be remembered that 53 MLAs of the party had on their own decided to come along with Ajit Pawar when the party had decided to join hands with BJP. And these MLAs included Rohit Pawar as well,” he said.

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Patil said on Thursday that party national chief Ajit Pawar has called a meeting of all MLAs to deliberate on the happenings of the past few days and also about the forthcoming assembly elections.

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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