Asserting that someone from the OBC must be made Maharashtra NCP president, Chhagan Bhujbal said that he would also like to work as state president
Chhagan Bhujbal. File Pic
A day after senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar said that he wanted to relinquish the post of Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly and work in the party organisation, his colleague Chhagan Bhujbal on Thursday batted for an Other Backward Classes (OBC) state unit chief and also threw his hat in the ring, reported the PTI.
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Ajit Pawar had on Wednesday appealed to the NCP leadership to relieve him of the responsibility as LoP and assign him any role in the party organisation. He came up with this demand at the 24th Foundation Day event of the Nationalist Congress Party held in Mumbai and attended by his uncle Sharad Pawar and other senior leaders.
Ajit Pawar took charge as the Leader of the Opposition last July after the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, in which he was the deputy chief minister, collapsed due to a rebellion in Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Asserting that someone from the Other Backward Classes must be made Maharashtra NCP president, Chhagan Bhujbal said, "I would also like to work as state president. There are many OBC leaders in the party, Sunil Tatkare, Jitendra Awhad, Dhananjay Munde," according to the PTI.
"The party organisational election process has begun and everyone can express their desire to head the state unit. There is nothing wrong in it. OBCs account for 54 per cent of Maharashtra's population and the party can bring them closer if the state chief is an OBC," he added, as per the PTI.
Incidentally, Chhagan Bhujbal was the first president of the state Nationalist Congress Party when it was formed in 1999.
He said current state unit chief Jayant Patil had been on the post for five years, adding that the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) state president Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Congress state unit chief Nana Patole were OBCs.
It is the norm that if the state unit president is from one dominant community, the LoP has to be from a smaller community in order to give representation to all sections of society, Chhagan Bhujbal added.
(with PTI inputs)
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