Amid reports of deflection from Congress, following Ashok Chavan’s exit, Maharashtra Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam has said that he is not leaving the Congress. The former Rajya Sabha MP has said he will not be following in the footsteps of Milind Deora, Baba Siddique, and Ashok Chavan.
Ashok Chavan, who resigned from the primary membership of the party on Monday, is likely to join the BJP on February 15. There is conjecture that his resignation is set to trigger large-scale defections from MLAs.
These are all baseless speculation and rumours, Sanjay Nirupam wrote on microblogging site X, formerly known as Twitter.
On Monday, after Ashok Chavan announced his exit from Congress, Sanjay Nirupam claimed that the former chief minister of Maharashtra was upset with the working style of a Congress leader from Maharashtra.
“Ashok Chavan was definitely an asset for the party. Some are calling him a liability, some are holding ED responsible, all this is a hasty reaction. He was basically very upset with the working style of a leader from Maharashtra,” Nirupam said in a post on ‘X’.
“He (Chavan) had given this information to the top leadership from time to time. Had their complaints been taken seriously, this situation would not have happened,” Nirupam added.
Ashok Chavan quits Congress, other MLAs to follow?
Ashok Chavan, who was being investigated in the Adarsh scam, is a mass leader who also enjoys the support of most Congress MLAs. He has his own set of loyalists in the party, and it is speculated that they are likely to announce their decision in the days to come.
While Amarnath Rajurkar, a former member of the legislative council, resigned from the Congress soon after Chavan’s resignation, the names of around 18 other MLAs are doing the rounds, reports Hindustan Times.
The report further states Among the names doing the rounds are Jitesh Antapurkar, Mohan Hambarde and Madhavrao Pawar from Nanded, Amit Deshmukh and Dhiraj Deshmukh from Latur and Vijay Wadettiwar.
Included in the ones who are rumoured to be on their way to the NCP is Baba Siddique’s son, Zeeshan Siddique and Aslam Shaikh.
Wadettiwar, Shaikh, Amin Patel have put out denials on social media.
While Milind Deora joined Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, Baba Siddique joined Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party(NCP). Ashok Chavan has not yet announced which party he is switching to, however, rumours are strife that he will join BJP.
Ashok Chavan headed for BJP on 15 February?
Notably Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis also said, “aage aage dekho hota hain kya“, alleging that Congress leaders felt “suffocated” within the party.
Meanwhile, Congress also claimed that Ashok Chavan, who quit the party on Monday, had met Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge last week and conveyed that there is “tremendous pressure” on him from probe agencies to defect. On November 9, 2010, the Congress Party asked him to resign from office over corruption allegations relating to the Adarsh Housing Society scam.
Maharashtra Congress sees mass exodus before Lok Sabha Polls
-The exodus of heavyweight Congress leader began with Milind Deora, who quit the party owing to the seat-sharing with UBT (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) Sena.
-Baba Siddique said he was used like ‘curry leaves’ by the Congress only for flavour.
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Published: 13 Feb 2024, 09:35 AM IST