In a big blow to Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the party’s Pimpri-Chinchwad chief, Ajit Gavhane, resigned from his post on Tuesday (July 16) and submitted his resignation letter to party president Sunil Tatkare.
Along with Ajit Gavhane, two former corporators and several other party leaders from Pimpri Chinchwad also sent their resignation letters to Sunil Tatkare.
Ajit Gavhane, the chief of NCP’s Pimpri-Chinchwad unit, sent his resignation letter to Ajit Pawar on Tuesday. He later confirmed that he quit the NCP. “I resigned yesterday, today we will have a meeting with all ex-corporators of another Vidhan Sabha constituency. We will then decide on our upcoming strategy,” Gavhane told reporters on Wednesday morning.
He added that he was meeting Sharad Pawar to decide his future plans. “Today, we will meet Pawar Sahab (Sharad Pawar) to seek his blessings. We will make a decision together. Rahul Bhosale, Yash Sane and Pankaj Bhalekar have also resigned along with me,” Gavhane added.
“If you look at Pimpri Chinchwad city, it was developed very well and Ajit Pawar had a great contribution towards it. But since 2017, BJP started holding PCMC (Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation) and since then development has been taking place in a wrongful manner’ he said.
“If you look at another constituency, the kind of development that has taken place shows that wrong things have taken place here. There has been corruption too. Sitting MLA is responsible for it,” Gavhane added.
This came after Rajya Sabha member and Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar on Tuesday visited the Modibaug area in Pune, where NCP founder Sharad Pawar has a house. Though both parties did not confirm whether they met, this triggered rumours that she may have met Sharad Pawar.
However, NCP functionary Suraj Chavan said Sunetra went to Modibaug to meet the sister of Ajit Pawar. Meanwhile, on Monday, Chhagan Bhujbal, a senior leader of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, met Sharad Pawar. “Sharad Pawar is the senior most member of the Pawar family. So, if she met him, I think she did a very good thing,” Bhujbal said.