Jolted by unprecedented desertions from his party, NCP founder Sharad Pawar will embark upon a six-day tour of western Maharashtra and Marathwada regions from September 17 to 22, to set the house in order and energise his cadres ahead of the State Assembly polls due next month.
During his six-day tour that will take him to three districts of his party’s strong-hold of western Maharashtra and eight districts of neighbouring Marathwada, Pawar will hold meetings with the party’s current and past MPS, MLAs, past and current representatives from local bodies, office bearers and representatives from the cooperative bodies.
This is for the second time since he founded the NCP in June 1999 that Pawar is undertaking such a tour in the state. In an effort to enlarge his party’s base, Pawar had taken a similar tour immediately after he founded NCP.
Faced with a major crisis arising out of large-scale desertions from his party, 79-year-old Pawar has—this time around— will be setting out from Solapur on a tour of eleven districts in western Maharashtra and Marathwada regions.
The districts where he will hold confabulations with his party leaders and elected representatives will be Solapur, Ahmednagar, Satara, all in western Maharashtra, Beed, Latur, Osmanabad Nanded, Hingoli, Parbhani, Jalna and Aurangabad, all in Marathwada.
According to a senior NCP leader, Pawar will hold meetings with party leaders and other people in in Solapur, Osmanabad (September 17), Beed, Latur (September 18), Parbhani (September 19), Jalna, Aurangabad (September 20), Ahmednagar (September 21) and Satara (September 22).
During his tour, Pawar — who had in eighties and nineties had undertaken similar State-wide tours— will go all out to rebuild his party to take on the powerful ruling BJP and Shiv Sena, which will contest the Assembly polls as an
alliance.
The NCP and Congress, which had contested the 2014 State Assembly polls separately, will contest next month’s Assembly together.
In the 2014
Assembly polls, the Congress had ended up with a final tally of mere 42 seats (out of the total 287 seats it contested), while its erstwhile ruling partner NCP bagged 41 seats (out of a total 278 seats
contested).
Many of Pawar’s loyalists, who were with him through his thick and thin of his political career, have deserted him and joined either the Shiv Sena or the BJP during the past four months. Prominent among them have been Dr Padmasinh Patil, Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, Madhukar Pichad, Ganesh Naik and Bhaskar Jadhav.
The latest NCP leader to desert the Sharad Pawar-led party is party’s sitting MP from Satara and 13th descendent of Maratha warrior Chhatrpati Shivaji, Udyayanraje Bhosale, who joined the BJP in the presence of party’s national president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi.
After the Lok Sabha polls, the NCP’s three sitting MLAs Shivrajendra Bhosale (Satara), Vaibhav Pichad (Akole in Ahmednagar district) and Sandeep Naik (Airoli in Navi Mumbai) joined the BJP on July 31, 2019.
Apart from four sitting Opposition MLAs, NCP’s former state NCP president and Sharad Pawar’s erstwhile confidant Madhukar Pichad, Navi Mumbai’s former Mayor Sagar Naik and NCP’s former NCP women president Chitra Wagh also joined the BJP.