Ajit Pawar has left many Congressmen baffled by leaving the Beed-Latur-Osmanabad local body legislative council seat for Congress. Though the NCP has more votes (251) than Congress (217), the NCP leader agreed to give up the seat to the Congress, but on the condition that Vilasrao Deshmukh’s brother Dilip Deshmukh would be its candidate.
“Dilip Deshmukh has been the Congress MLC for two consecutive terms. Usually, the party does not give the third term to anybody. Moreover, Dilip Deshmukh has not been politically active in the last few years due to his ill health. The party workers were hoping that a new person would be given the opportunity, but Mr Pawar put the condition that Dilip Deshmukh be given another term and since the NCP had more votes, the Congress had no option but to accede to his demand,” said a senior Congress leader from Maharashtra.
Interestingly, Vilasrao Deshmukh has been a strong opponent of his uncle NCP chief Sharad Pawar in state politics from the latter’s days in the Congress. In this backdrop, Mr Ajit Pawar insisting for Mr Dilip Deshmukh’s candidature has puzzled many.
Some Congressmen feel that this could be NCP leader’s ploy to weaken chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s position in the state.
“The CM has ruffled NCP leaders’ feathers by announcing the decision to bring out a white paper on irrigation projects. Earlier also, the CM had crossed swords with the Pawars by dissolving the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank’s board, headed by Mr Ajit Pawar. It appears that the NCP leader is now trying to corner the CM by teaming up with Vilasrao Deshmukh,” the Congress leader said.
State Congress chief Manikrao Thakre has announced the candidature of Dilip Deshmukh and Rahul Pugalia as Congress candidates for the biennial legislative council election to Beed-Latur-Osmanabad and Chandrapur-Wardha-Gadchiroli local bodies seats respectively. Rahul is the son of former Congress MP Naresh Pugalia. The party has chosen him over the sitting MLC Jainuddin Jhaveri. The party is yet to announce its candidate from Parbhani local bodies seat.
The election will be held on May 25. The ruling alliance partners — Congress and NCP are contesting the election together. NCP has already announced candidatures of Anil Tatkare for Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg local bodies and Jayant Jadhav from Nashik local bodies seat.