NCP slams CM for poaching party leaders

Mumbai: With Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday hinting at the possibility of more defections from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), several NCP leaders launched an all-out attack against him and his party a day later on Friday.

NCP’s face in Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, claimed that the BJP lacked a leader who could win the polls and was therefore poaching on leaders from other parties.

Mr Pawar said, “The BJP has no strong workers or leaders who can contest on its ticket and win. They do surveys in the name of people. And poach leaders who come up in these surveys.” He said that his party would bring new and strong faces and battle BJP’s politics of poaching.

Slamming the BJP in his campaign speech at Bhandara-Gondia, the senior NCP leader said, “When the BJP leaders were in the opposition, they used to claim all solutions. But now petrol has reached '85. These people have failed to give relief to the people. The real thing is that BJP has failed in governance and the people are suffering.”

NCP MP Supriya Sule taunted Mr Fadnavis, dubbing him “a failed student who sat in the same class for three years”.

Ms Sule said, “The chief minister is still studying the issues before the state. Three years have already passed. I would suggest he sits with my brother, Ajit Pawar, and learns how to govern. We will not charge any fee. If a student sits for three years in a single class, he needs tuitions. The chief minister now needs tuitions.”

The chief minister, while welcoming Niranjan Davkhare, former NCP MLC, into the BJP on Thursday, indicated that there were more leaders in queue to join the BJP.