Mumbai: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has now become a sinking ship and is facing serious existential crisis with leaders leaving the party on a daily basis, literally.
The party is now witnessing desertion from prominent leaders which raises a poignant question, will any prominent leader stay on in this party? And if at all, for how long? This mass desertion by NCP leaders may eventually lead to NCP’s much-talked merger with the Congress party.
Once the battery of strong leaders leave this party, then its party chief Sharad Pawar will have little options. He may be forced to merge the party with the Congress, to ensure his family's relevance remains in Maharashtra politics.
After Sachin Ahir quit NCP, few others have followed in line. Among the prominent leaders expected to cross over are, Pankaj Bhujbal, son of former Deputy Chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who is expected to join the Shiv Sena on Monday. Along with him, Sangram Jagtap, a legislator from Ahmednagar district is expected to join the Sena.
Though the Shiv Saniniks are opposing Bhujbal family joining their party, the leadership is in no mood to entertain. Meanwhile, the NCP faced serious setback on Friday, when two sitting MLAs from Solapur district refused to appear for the interviews for ticket distribution.
The NCP leader, Ajit Pawar was in Solapur on Friday, to conduct interviews of ticket aspirants, but two legislators, Baban Shinde from Madha and Dilip Sopal from Barshi did not turn for their interviews.
A clear signal to their leadership, they will say bye bye to NCP. Baban is considered to be a strong leader from Solapur for the NCP. The NCP had given him a ticket from Madha Lok Sabha constituency. He however lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, Ranjit Naik-Nimbalkar, who had crossed over from Congress.
Sharad Pawar had in fact denied ticket to another NCP loyalist family, Mohite Patil to field Baban from Madha. This ultimately resulted in a rift and the die-hard NCP loyalist Mohite Patil family crossed over to the BJP.
In another twist, during the Ashadhi Ekdashi celebrations Baban welcomed the Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis at the Solapur Airport, giving signals of his intentions to cross over.
Ranjit Shinde, Baban's son is also said to be on his way to the BJP which is why he gave a miss to the interview. This bigger shock however, is that of Dilip Sopal, a close confidante of Pawar family who is on his way to join the Sena.
After Vaibhav Pichad and Shivendra Raje Bhosale hinted, they too will join the BJP, NCP is witnessing one of its worst exodus. In the last two months, Jayadutt Kshirsagar, Pandurang Barora and Sachin Ahir joined the Sena.
Rana Jagjit Singh Patil, legislator from Osmanabad district and son of former minister Padam Singh Patil, Bhaskar Jadhav, former minister and senior NCP leader too are expected to leave the party.
