After Ajit Pawar came back to NCP, he immediately took over his old position as the Number 2 in the party, right below chief Sharad Pawar. After his failed rebellion and return to the party, he has again started holding meetings and addressing legislators. With him getting a clean chit from the Anti Corruption Bureau on the multi crore irrigation scam, rumours are now afloat that Ajit would get the deputy Chief Minister’s post. Congress has already accepted the Speaker position. On Saturday, Ajit was among the key leaders who made the strategy for the confidence motion. Now, he is part of the team that is making strategy decisions for the Speaker selection to be held on Sunday. He was seen busy in the Assembly with the newly selected protem Speaker, Dilip Walse Patil, for the first day of the special session. Ajit Pawar also attended the business advisory committee meeting of the legislature on Friday, which was attended by the Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and other ministers.
MAYAWATI IN TROUBLE AS SEVERAL LEADERS LEAVE BSP FOR SP
After the by-election of 11 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh in which BJP won 7 seats and BSP lost all, the BSP leaders, including former lawmakers, have left their own party to join Samajwadi Party, along with hundreds of workers. In fact, the most prominent among them are Dalits, whose inclusion in the SP comes at a time when the party seeks to strengthen its base among the Dalits who account for 21% of UP population. So far, the SP has been primarily seen as the party of Yadavs and Muslims — Yadavs accounting for 9% of the state population and Muslims, who constitute 19% of the UP demographic. With BSP’s decline and continued erosion of its base, it is evident that the SP is now becoming a main opposition party in the state, as more and more Dalits make a beeline to join SP. It must be remembered that BSP supremo Mayawati had ended the alliance with SP after the 2019 Lok Sabha election in which BSP won 10 seats, a marked increase from 2014 when its seat-count in Lok Sabha was zero. The SP, in turn, won only 5 seats matching its performance in 2014.But soon after the Lok Sabha election, former BSP minister Ghura Ram, who had been with the party since its inception in 1984, was the first major leader to switch over to SP. Within a fortnight, 17 leaders from Pratapgarh including R K Bhim, former BSP state president Daya Ram Pal, and Mithailal Bharati joined the SP.
MAMATA REJOICES TMC WIN IN BENGAL BY-POLLS
Thursday was a happy day for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee since TMC managed to win all three assembly by-polls in West Bengal, while the BJP scored nil. Moreover, BJP suffered a massive snub in Maharashtra with Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray, alongwith the alliance of Congress-NCP — known as the Maha Vikas Aghadi — formed the government in place of BJP in the state. In West Bengal, TMC won Kaliaganj, Kharagpur-Sadar and Karimpur constituencies. Soon after the results of by-polls, TMC and BJP workers started fighting on the streets in several parts of West Bengal. TMC’s Pradip Sarkar wrested Kharagpur-Sadar seat from BJP. He defeated Premchandra Jha of the saffron party by a comfortable margin of 20,788 votes. The loss in Kharagpur-Sadar came as a shock for the BJP, whose state president Dilip Ghosh was the MLA from there before he got elected to the Lok Sabha from Medinipur. Kharagpur-Sadar in an assembly segment in Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency.
SANJAY NIRUPAM SKIPS UDDHAV’S OATH-TAKING CEREMONY
While almost all top leaders of the Congress in Maharashtra attended the swearing-in-ceremony of Uddhav Thackeray, former Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam was conspicuous by his absence. A former Shiv Sainik, Nirupam was very vocal against the Congress tie-up with the Sena. Nirupam flew off to Goa to mark his presence for the wedding of the grandson of a late Maharashtra Congress veteran and he let the people know that he was in Goa by posting pictures on social media.
BJP LOSES ROOKEE MAYORAL ELECTION TO REBEL CANDIDATE GOEL
BJP has lost the Mayoral election in Roorkee municipal corporation in Uttarakhand. While the Congress remained at the second spot, the BJP came in an astounding third position. In fact, Gaurav Goel, a rebel BJP candidate, has won with the margin of over 2400 votes. In this election, Chief Minister Trivender Singh Rawat and urban development minister Madan Kaushik had given the ticket to Mayank Agarwal, but the BJP workers had opposed the Chief Minister’s candidate Mayank Agarwal, resulting in the defeat of the BJP candidate in the Mayoral election. According to sources, Gaurav Goel was supported by the central HRD minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. Rumours abound that Roorkee MLA Pradeep Batra, senior BJP leader Mukesh Kumar and several RSS workers were supporting the rebel candidate. Meanwhile, BJP retained the Pithoragarh Assembly seat in the by-polls with the party’s candidate, Chandra Pant, defeating Congress’s Anju Lunthi by 3,267 votes. (IPA)
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee Is Facing Revolt 