Why NCP is the bugbear for Sena rebels

Incidentally, it was former chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis who first raised the issue of “unequal distribution of funds” in the state Assembly. In March this year, he said maximum funds had been sanctioned to the NCP, with the Sena receiving less in comparison. Deputy CM and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar of the NCP had refuted the allegations then.

A look at the allegations the rebels made against the NCP:

* Eknath Shinde, the leader of the Sena rebels, tweeted that the MVA was “a dragon under whose clutches the Shiv Sena is”, and that he was fighting to free the Shiv Sena and Sainiks.

* Sanjay Shirsat, Aurangabad West MLA, said: “The NCP and Congress were getting funds but the Sena MLAs did not get them. People in our constituency used to ask us, ‘Even after the chief minister is ours, how come you are not getting funds but other parties are getting?’.”

* Mahesh Shinde, MLA from Koregaon in Satara District, also alleged a “huge discrepancy” in the funds that the Sena received in comparison to the NCP. “While Sena MLAs got Rs 50-55 crore as funds for their constituency, all the NCP MLAs got a minimum or RS 700-800 crore sanctioned in their areas.”

He has also claimed Sena MLAs were not “invited for government functions”, and that Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar of the NCP “did not pay heed to instructions from the CMs office”.

He added: “State NCP president Jayant Patil visited almost all constituencies from where Sena MLAs were elected. In his speeches he stated that in the next elections, an NCP candidate would get elected from the constituency.”

* Shambhuraje Desai, MLA from Patan and Minister of State (MOS) for finance, said: “Many MLAs would come to me for their work in their constituency and would request to make provision of the funds in the budget. Even as I was MoS for finance, I had no powers to make provisions of funds in the budget”.

Desai added: “I had to keep requesting the Finance minister Ajit Pawar for providing funds even to carry out any work in my own constituency. In my own experience, even in the earlier government of Maha Yuti (BJP-Shiv Sena), I did not receive much funding for my constituency. But if this is my condition even after becoming the MoS for finance, then the other MLAs not getting the funds is the fact. I have been conveying it to the CM that the MLAs are upset but no decision was taken on it.”

* Dipak Kesarkar, Sawantwadi MLA, spoke similarly: “Sena MLAs were not getting development funds, but the NCP was distributing the same to its candidates who lost instead. The NCP was basically making the candidates of every constituency strong by providing funds and doing development but at the same time Sena MLA would not get the funds to do the similar development works.”

Kesarkar also suggested that important ministerial portfolios were cornered by the NCP. “The only good departments we had were the Urban Development and the Industries department. For everything else we had to go to the NCP to get our work done.”

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* Sandeepanrao Bhumre, minister and MLA from Aurangabad, said: “The Congress is not much of a problem. But, we don’t get along with the NCP.”

* Bharatshet Maruti Gogawale, the chief whip of the Shinde camp and MLA from Mahad, said that while Uddhav did “not hold a single meeting in the past 2.5 years with candidates who lost Assembly polls in 2019, nor provided funds to give them strength to help the party grow in their constituencies”, the NCP’s Ajit Pawar had given money “to all MLAs, corporators, even zilla parishad members and sarpanchs” of the NCP.