In a political coup of sorts pulled off by the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) ahead of the Malegaon Municipal Corporation (MMC) elections, all the 28 Congress corporators – including current Mayor Tahera Shaikh Rashid – on Thursday defected to the NCP, thus causing an earthquake in the State Congress.
In a development that that diminished the Congress in the Muslim-dominated town in north Maharashtra but also brought about strains in the NCP and Congress which are constituents in the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the 28 Congress corporators joined the Sharad Pawar-led party in the presence of Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, state party president Jayant Patil, senior minister Chhagan Bhujbal and Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik.
At a function held at the state party quarters in south Mumbai, Malegaon Mayor Tahera Shaikh, her husband, former MLA and current corporator Rashid Shaikh and 26 corporators entered the NCP, taking the NCP’s strength from the 20 corporators to 48 corporators. Hitherto, the Congress and NCP were ruling the MMC as an alliance.
Informed sources said that Thursday’s mass-defection was an off-shoot of the resignation tendered by Rashid Shaikh as the Malegaon Congress president last year. Though the State Congress had thought that the crisis triggered by Shaikh’s resignation had blown over, his wife and MMC Mayor Tahera Shaikh dropped the bombshell on the Sonia Gandhi-led party and led the entire team of disgruntled party corporators into the NCP.
Though jolted to the core, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole sought to underplay the development, by saying this kind of defections did happen in politics and that some people from the NCP would soon be joining his party.
“Some persons from Congress have joined the NCP. Similarly, a few people from NCP will also be joining us. But, I am not revealing details now. We may be in alliance in MVA, but this is after all politics,” Patole said.
With the defection of the 28 Congress corporators to the NCP, the political arithmetic has vastly changed in the powerloom town of Malegaon in general and the MMC in particular in the run-up the local civic body polls scheduled to be held next month.
Prior to the defection of the 28 Congress corporators to the NCP, the party-wise break-up in the MMC was as follows: Congress 28, NCP 20, Shiv Sena 12, BJP 9, AIMIM 7 and JD(S) 7. But, post- en masse defection of corporators from Congress to the Congress, the Sharad Pawar-led party’s strength has gone to 48, while the Congress reduced to zero.
Earlier, welcoming 28 Congress corporators to his party fold, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar recalled that Rashid Shaikh, who was elected to the State Assembly in 1999, was taking along with him all sections of the society in Malegaon. “Our party president Sharad Pawar has believed and practised inclusiveness in politics.