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A Bharatiya Janata Party office-bearer from Shirur in Maharashtra's Pune district has sought the removal of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and his Nationalist Congress Party from the ruling alliance, which also consists of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.
A video of Sudarshan Choudhary, the BJP's Shirur tehsil vice president, making the demand at a party meeting recently has gone viral, leading to a backlash from the NCP, whose workers mobbed him on Thursday and sought an apology.
"It is a suggestion to you. Listen to what party workers are thinking. If you really want to make a decision, remove Ajit Pawar from the Mahayuti (ruling alliance)," Choudhary tells the BJP leadership in the video.
He also said senior leaders like Subhash Deshmukh, Rahul Kulkarni and Yogesh Tilekar, who were present in the meeting, could have become ministers and others could have been made head of state-run corporations if Pawar was not part of the ruling dispensation.
The BJP had been opposing Pawar for the last 10 years but workers are now in a state of fear because the Deputy CM is at the helm of affairs, Choudhary further claimed.
It is the wish of all BJP workers in the tehsil that they do want such power which also involves Ajit Pawar, he added.
"Why bring Ajit Pawar to power because he will issue orders and suppress BJP workers," Choudhary said in the video.
Speaking to reporters on the issue, Choudhary said during the review meeting held in Shirur, BJP workers freely expressed their wish.
Meanwhile, several Nationalist Congress Party workers arrived at the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) complex in Pune when Choudhary was talking to reporters, shouted slogans against him and sought an apology for the statement on the deputy CM.
They tried to blacken his face but he managed to escape. Police arrived at the scene and took control of the situation.
Choudhary later clarified the views were personal and did not represent the BJP's stand.
"If my words have offended Ajitdada, then I apologise," he said while criticising NCP workers for creating a ruckus on the issue.
In a social media post in which he tagged Deputy CM and senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, Chaudhary said he was expressing public sentiments and was subsequently threatened by 'NCP goons'.
He asked Fadnavis to give him police protection as he feared for his life.
The ruling alliance got a drubbing in the recent Lok Sabha polls, managing to win just 17 seats against the Maha Vikas Aghadi's 30.
The Ajit Pawar-led NCP emerged victorious on just Raigad seat.
In Shirur, NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar MP Amol Kolhe trounced the ruling alliance's Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil by a margin of more than 1.40 lakh votes.
Ajit Pawar and eight MLAs had joined the Shinde government in July last year.
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BJP may want Ajit Pawar to contest elections separately and divide MVA votes: Rohit
Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar leader Rohit Pawar on Thursday claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party may want the rival NCP led by his uncle and Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar to contest the coming assembly elections separately in order to cut into the Opposition's votes.
The saffron party was trying to reduce Ajit Pawar's political importance, he told reporters in Mumbai.
The BJP might offer Ajit Pawar only 20 of the 288 assembly seats, and the latter could then walk out of the ruling alliance, said Rohit, grand-nephew of NCP-SP supremo Sharad Pawar.
"To keep Ajit Pawar out may be a strategy of the BJP, or both BJP and Ajit Pawar group. He may contest separately to divide the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi's votes, especially those of NCP (SP). But the people and the MLAs in Ajit Pawar's party are not fools," he said.
The people have shown in the Lok Sabha elections that they would not entertain 'vote cutters', said Rohit, MLA from Karjat Jamkhed.
Asked about reports that some MLAs from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP met NCP-SP Maharashtra chief Jayant Patil on the state legislature premises here, Rohit repeated his claim that 18 to 19 MLAs of the Ajit faction were in touch with Jayant Patil and Sharad Pawar.
"The two leaders will decide who should be inducted back in the party," he added.
About some BJP workers reportedly criticising the saffron party's decision to include Ajit Pawar in the ruling coalition during a review meeting in Shirur, Rohit said earlier only BJP leaders targeted the NCP chief. Now even party workers were speaking out against Ajit Pawar, he said.