Pawar powers Ranjit triumph

MUMBAI, June 10: Senior Congress leader and Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar today scored a major victory over his traditional rivals S B Cha...

MUMBAI, June 10: Senior Congress leader and Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar today scored a major victory over his traditional rivals S B Chavan and Sudhakarrao Naik when his nominee Ranjit Deshmukh was unanimously elected as the president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.

Consensus was reached after a nine-hour long meeting between Sharad Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Madhukar Pichad, Padmasinh Patil, Datta Moghe on one side and S B Chavan, Sudhakarrao Naik, V N Gadgil and Shrikant Jichkar on the other.

Naik-Chavan nominee and veteran Congress leader from Western Maharashtra Prataprao Bhonsale withdrew at the last moment saying he was taking this extreme step in the larger interest of the party so that a united strategy could be evolved to contain the burgeoning influence of the Sena-BJP alliance in Maharashtra.

The official announcement was made by pradesh returning officer Santosh Mohan Deo in the presence of thousands of party workers.

According to the compromise reached between the two warring factions, one post of the vice-president will be given to the Naik-Chavan group while the other two will remain with the Pawar camp.

As far as the remaining posts to the AICC panel 75, executive committee 51 and the State Parliamentary Board 15 were concerned, the sharing will be in the ratio of 65 to 35 per cent in favour of the Pawar group.

The election to the other panels as per the revised formula will be held tomorrow.

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Before finalising nominees, Pawar held deliberations with senior party leaders Chhagan Bhujbal, Madhukar Pichad, Praful Patel and Datta Meghe at the Y B Chavan Centre, while the rival group led by S B Chavan, Shrikant Jichkar, Vilas Muttemwar and former minister Mukul Wasnik held meetings at the Worli residence of Sudhakarrao Naik.

Current MPCC president Sushilkumar Shinde and former chief minister A R Antulay were the mediators for the two groups.Pawar made it clear to his rivals that since more than 525 of the 596 delegates in the State are with him, he will not offer more than 10 per cent of the posts, while the rival faction was demanding 40 per cent of the organisational posts.

Subsequently, Pawar increased the percentage to 20 and as there was no response, he decided to field his nominees for all the 145 posts.

From the manner in which the deliberations were held, it appears that the contest at the national level between Pawar and interim party president Sitaram Kesri had percolated at the State level. From the beginning itself, supporters of Pawar were in no mood to compromise with the rival factions on the ground that they had taken an open stand against their leader during the All India Congress Committee AICC presidential elections.

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8220;We feel that even at the State level, the younger generation should be given an opportunity to serve the party and therefore we nominated Ranjeet Deshmukh,8221; says a senior party leader. Incidentally, Deshmukh was a Cabinet minister in the Naik Cabinet.

At the MPCC office, soon after Deo announced the poll schedule, nine candidates 8212; Shivajirao Deshmukh, Prataprao Bhosale, Vilas Muttemwar, Ulhas Pawar, Patangrao Kadam, Shrikant Jichkar, Mukul Wasnik, Ranjeet Deshmukh and Sudhir Sawant 8212; filed their nominations for the president8217;s post. However, after the withdrawal period was over, only Deshmukh, Bhosale and Pawar remained in fray.

For the three posts of vice-presidents, there were nine candidates in the fray, for one post of treasurer, four were in the race, for 51 posts of executive committee members, 100 were in the race, for 75 posts of AICC members, 110 were in the fray, while for 15 posts of State Parliamentary Board members, there were 30 nominees in the race.