Amid the renewed buzz about the merger of the two factions of the Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that 20 to 22 MLAs of the Sunetra Pawar-led NCP could break away.
Talking to reporters, Raut said NCP MLAs visiting NCP(SP) president Sharad Pawar were not having just casual chats, and hinted that there was more to these meetings. On Tuesday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said the NCP merger cannot happen without consulting the BJP.
Victory was snatched from Congress MLC Satej Patil’s panel which had won a majority in the last month’s election, Raut said.
To this, Raut said this was not applicable to Sharad Pawar’s party. On the Gokul Dairy polls, Raut said the developments in the Kolhapur-based milk cooperative were detrimental to democracy. On Fadnavis’ remark that he was backing Gokul Dairy and not any individual, Raut said in that case he would not have brought in a law to appoint four government-nominated directors.
NCP leader Rajesh Patil, a candidate of the ruling Mahayuti, on Tuesday won the highly controversial election to the post of chairman of Gokul Dairy after the state government nominated four additional directors with voting rights to the dairy’s board.
