Mumbai:In a setback to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra, its legislator Niranjan Davkhare on Wednesday quit the party citing factionalism. Minutes later, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said he would join the party on Thursday.
Davkhare told reporters that he had sent his resignation to the legislative council chairman Ramraje Nimbalkar and also written to NCP state unit chief Jayant Patil resigning his party membership.
“My father Vasantrao Davkhare was one of the NCP founder-members and I have seen the party through him since 1999. The NCP was like a family to me and my father and it is a painful decision for me. There has been frequent factionalism in the party since the last few years. A faction in the party worked against my father in 2016 when he was contesting for the legislative council but there has not been any action against this faction,” Davkhare said.
Davkhare was a member of the legislative council from the Konkan Graduates constituency. His father Vasant Davkhare, who died in January this year, was a senior NCP leader and chairman of the legislative council for a long time. Soon after Davkhare announced his decision to quit the NCP, the BJP issued a statement saying the former NCP legislator would be joining the BJP on Thursday.
Only last month, the NCP elected former Maharashtra finance minister Jayant Patil as its state unit chief to lead the party into the next round of elections. Davkhare’s exit is a setback for the NCP especially in the Thane district in Mumbai’s neighbourhood where the NCP has a significant presence.
Davkhare’s resignation from the legislative council brings down the NCP’s strength in the 78-member Upper House of Maharashtra’s bicameral legislature to 22. NCP is, however, still the single-largest party in the upper House.