Eleven days after its Mumbai unit chief Sachin Ahir quit the party and joined the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday appointed its senior leader and chief spokesperson Nawab Malik in Ahir’s place as the party’s Mumbai unit president.
Making an announcement at the behest of party-founder president Sharad Pawar, State NCP president Jayant Patil said that Malik’s appointment as the party’s Mumbai would come in handy in not only strengthening the party in Mumbai, but it would also help reach the party’s policies and programmes to the common people in the metropolis.
Sixty-year-old Malik is a four-time MLA — elected to the State Assembly thrice from Kurla’s Nehru Nagar constituency and once from Anushakti Nagar constituency in north- central and north-east Mumbai respectively.
Born at Duswa in Uttar Pradesh, he migrated to Mumbai in 1970. He was a minister the erstwhile Congress-NCP governments handling a variety of portfolios. He, however, resigned as the minister in 2005 following allegations of corruption made against him by social crusader Anna Hazare. Later he returned to the cabinet and was appointed a Guardian Minister of Mumbai. He is considered close to the Pawar family.
With Malik at the helm of the party affairs in Mumbai, the NCP hopes to expand its base in the metropolis in the run-up to the State Assembly polls to be held in Uttar Pradesh. The party thinks he is an apt replacement for Ahir.
It may be recalled that Ahir had quit the NCP and joined the Shiv Sena on July 25. “Sometimes one has to take hard decisions. Only time will tell whether my decision (to join the Shiv Sena) is proper or not. I am happy that I am joining the Shiv Sena. At the same time, I am not so happy to leave the NCP," Ahir had said.
Forty-seven-year-old Ahir, who had steadily moved up within the NCP ranks to become its Mumbai unit president, had said: “I am going from one stream of ideology to another. I tried to meet Pawar saheb. I wanted to tell him about my plans to join the Shiv Sena. But, I could neither meet him nor talk to him over phone. But, Pawar saheb will always have a permanent place in my heart. But, I had in the past briefed him about the situation in my constituency in the past".