Mumbai: Congress MLA Kalidas Kolambkar and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislators Vaibhav Pichad, Shivendra Raje Bhosale and Sandip Naik Tuesday resigned from the Assembly.
All of them are set to join the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday. Mr Kolambkar, an MLA from Naigaon in Thane district, Mr Pichad, who represents Akole, Mr Bhosale, who represents Satara, and Mr Naik, a legislator from Airoli in Navi Mumbai handed over their resignation letters separately to speaker Haribhau Bagade at the Vidhan Bhavan.
Mr Bhosale, who is the cousin of Udayanraje Bhosale, NCP MP from Satara, said that he was more interested in protecting the interests of his Assembly constituency.
A BJP office bearer said that all four legislators and corporators of Navi Mumbai, among others, would join the BJP at the Garware Club on Wednesday.
The BJP has allegedly been poaching Opposition leaders since registering a spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha election. In the Lok Sabha election, the BJP and its ally ,Shiv Sena, won 41 out of the 48 seats in the state. It is to be noted that the saffron party now aims to win 220 seats in the upcoming Assembly election.
The saffron party had undertaken a similar exercise of poaching leaders of Opposition parties ahead of the Lok Sabha election in April-May 2019. The state of Maharas-htra goes to polls in September-October this year.
