After a cosmetic reshuffle of party Ministers in the Maharashtra Cabinet earlier this week, the ruling NCP on Saturday appointed a dropped Minister Bhaskar Jadhav, as the State party president, while it anointed senior legislator Jitendra Awhad as the State party’s working president.
An announcement about the appointment of Jadhav and Awhad as party’s State unit president and working president respectively was made at a party meeting here, held in the presence of the NCP chief.
Though the appointment of Jadhav as the NCP’s new State chief came as a surprise, the development will in no way help the Sharad Pawar-led party to improve its much-eroded image ahead of lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the State.
For, it was the same Jadhav whom the NCP chief had publicly reprimanded a few months ago for hosting a lavish wedding for his son and daughter in Chiplun when the state was facing its worst drought.
So lavish were the arrangements that Jadhav had made for the wedding and receptions for his son Sameer and daughter Kanchan in Chiplun in Ratnagiri on February 13 that a pandal spread over five lakh sq feet had been erected, while 22 make-shift helipads had specially been constructed to ferry guests.
Meanwhile, the appointment of Jitendra Awhad, a close Pawar aide, as the working president of the State NCP, is being seen as an effort by the leadership to infuse young blood into the party apparatus.