Mumbai: Amid political crisis that engulfed Maharashtra, the NCP on Wednesday met to discuss the fate of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who quit from all ministerial posts over his alleged role in the irrigation scam, and other party ministers but without any major progress as the party decided to take the issue to party suprmeo Sharad Pawar.
The Pawar Senior is expected to be in the city on September 28.
“We will request Pawar Senior to look into the issue,” party leader Nawab Mallik told UNI.
Earlier, at the crucial meeting, NCP legislators passed a resolution urging Mr Ajit Pawar to take back his resignation.
The party also wants the Congress, the senior partner in the coalition with NCP, to replace Prithviraj Chavan as the Chief Minister.
Mr Ajit Pawar’s resignation plunged Maharashtra into a political crisis, confounding the Congress.
The Deputy Chief Minister quit in a cloud of allegations that he had arbitrarily doled out irrigation contracts worth over Rs 20,000 crore when he was the water resources minister between 1999-2009,before he was elevated as Deputy Chief Minister, handling the plum finance and energy portfolios.
Amid a clamour by NCP legislators to quit the ruling Democratic Front coalition, all the remaining 19 NCP ministers also offered to quit and sent in their resignations to state party chief Madhukarrao Pichhad.
Political experts feel the NCP’s move was to force the Congress to remove Mr Chavan ahead of the 2014 polls.
Speaking to mediapersons, Mr Sharad Pawar had indicated that his party was not interested in quitting the government.
After taking over as the Chief Minister in 2010, Mr Chavan had intimidated the NCP first by challenging the party’s dominance over cooperative sector by dissolving the state’s apex cooperative bank.
Later, Mr Chavan repeatedly demanded a white paper on irrigation sector from the water resources department, which has been with the NCP since 1999.
Meanwhile, BJP has said the present crisis in the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra has not come as a surprise as the allies were “into corruption with a competitive spirit”.
“The drama in Maharashtra is not new. This had to happen. Both Congress and NCP are thoroughly looting the state…. They are into corruption with a competitive spirit and are vying with each othere. Jointly they are looting the state,” BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters here today.
The BJP leader claimed that the events in Maharashtra are “a trailer of things to come in Indian politics. Every ally will now put pressure on the government.”
He said in Maharashtra the issue between Congress and NCP is “who got more and who got less”, even as the “dynamics of uncle and cousin” is also in play there.
“There is dynamics of stopping the investigation or protecting the corrupt…. It’s a demand of cover up. And that is why Maharashtra situation was expected to blow up like this. It has blown up,” Javadekar said.
Earlier, BJP Chief Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad termed the UPA government as a sinking ship led by the Congress. (Agencies)