Maharashtra: 4 office bearers of Ajit Pawar faction of NCP quit party

In a jolt to the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), four top leaders of the party’s Pimpri Chinchwad unit have resigned and are likely to join the Sharad Pawar-led faction, reports said.

The four are city chief Ajit Gavhane, working president Rahul Bhosale, Pankaj Bhalekar, the president of Bhosari assembly constituency and Yash Sane, who was the president of the city youth wing of the party.

Announcing the decision, Gavhane told the media that he and his colleagues will announce their future course of action on Wednesday.

It is said that the Mahayuti’s apparent decision to field Bhosari’s sitting MLA Mahesh Landge from the seat in the upcoming assembly polls, from where Gavhane also wanted to contest, may have led to his decision.

The resignations come in the wake of NCP’s poor performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls in which it could only win one of the four seats it contested.

Last month Sharad Pawar had hinted that those who would “weaken the party” will not be accepted back into the NCP (SP), but he would accept those who “would help strengthen the organisation and not hurt the image of the party.”