In a boost to the ruling Congress in Maharashtra ahead of the forthcoming Assembly polls, four MlAs —who had contested as rebels and won the 2009 Assembly — returned to the parent party fold on Wednesday, after the State party leadership promised them tickets to contest the October 2014 Assembly polls.
The four Independent sitting MlAs, who returned to the ruling Congress at a formal function held at Gandhi Bhavan in south Mumbai, were Vasantrao Chavan (Naigaon), Shirish Chaudhari (Raver), Sureshkumar Jethaliya (Partur) and Jayakumar Gore (Gore)
The four sitting legislators joined the Congress in the presence of several senior party leaders including Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, former Union Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, State Congress president Manikrao Thakre and AICC Secretary-in-charge for Maharashtra Balaram Bachchan.
The four MlAs are among the 24 Independent MlAs in the current Assembly. A majority of the Independents had contested the 2009 State Assembly polls as rebel candidates from either the Congress or the NCP and won.
Of the 24 sitting independent MlAs, as many as 15 of them have been supporting the ruling Congress – which on its own as many as 82 out of the 170 seats it had contested in the 2009 polls, while nearly rest of all other the independent MlAs have backed its ally NCP, which had won 62 seats out of 113 seats it had contested in the polls.
Talking to media persons after welcoming the four Independent MlAs into his party fold, Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said that “in coming” of Independent MlAs into the ruling Congress ahead of the Assembly polls was a good omen. “Given that Maharashtra continues to be number one state in the country, I am confident that we will return to power the state for the fourth consecutive term,” Chavan said.
Chavan said that the ruling Congress would go to the Assembly with a plank of secularism-linked development in the state. He said that Shinde, who is heading the party’s manifesto committee for the Assembly polls, would soon present the Congress’ poll manifesto. Shinde also expressed confidence that the Congress-NCP alliance would retain power in Maharashtra in the Assembly elections.