Secret files will be Sena-BJP weapon against Pawar — CM

Currently on a whirlwind tour of western Maharashtra to give the Shiv Sena campaign a kick-start, Rane was speaking to mediapersons at a meet-the-press organised by the Pune Union of Working Journalists (PUWJ).

“When a person like Chavan is making such serious allegations against Pawar, it needs to be probed,” he said.

Earlier, speaking in Karad on Wednesday, Rane had maintained that he saw “some truth” in the allegations made by Chavan. “I say this as a head of the State Government,” he said, adding for good measure that Pawarshould go and file a defamation suit against Chavan at the earliest, as the truth would come out in a court of law.

“Confidential information about the activities of a few Congress and NCP heavyweights will be an aayudh (weapon) for the Sena-BJP combine … We will make a few secrets public at a proper time,” he said, brushing aside remarks that such pronouncements amounted to a political stunt ahead of the elections.

“The Congress and NCP will fight to finish each other … Pawar will not even manage 50 seats in the State Assembly. The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance will win in 30 to 35 Parliamentary constituencies across the State and in 175-180 Assembly segments. The major share of seats for the saffron alliance will come from Marathwada, Vidarbha and Konkan,” Rane claimed.

Conceding that “NCP will win some ten seats in Western Maharashtra and one or two seats from Vidarbha”, Rane maintained that the NCP president hardly had a following in other parts of Maharashtra.

He said that the“power-hungry” Pawar and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had toppled the Vajpayee Government “for selfish motives”. “It will be very simple for the Sena-BJP to fight a divided Congress,” he added.

Denying any infighting within the Sena, Rane questioned the right of the Congress to criticise the alliance Government on issues like corruption, houses for 50 lakh slum dwellers in Mumbai or jobs for 27 lakh youths. “These problems were aggravated during the Congress regime. It was the Shiv Sena which addressed these issues,” he said.

NCP announces unit

MUMBAI: A 191-member strong Executive Committee of NCP Maharashtra unit was announced today by the party’s State chief Chhagan Bhujbal. There are 16 organisational secretaries and a whopping 101 members of the State Executive, NCP sources said.

Ajit Pawar, nephew of Sharad Pawar, also figures in the list of State Unit Executive.