Thane: Two senior local leaders leave BJP, join NCP in Ulhasnagar

KALYAN: In a major setback to the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) in Ulhasnagar, after 22 corporators left the party and joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), two other senior local leaders left the party and have joined NCP in Ulhasnagar.
The move ahead of the upcoming Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC) election, which is likely to be held along with BMC, is a bad signal for BJP in Ulhasnagar.
Both leaders — Anand Shinde, ex-vice president of BJP in city and Dinesh Changani, president of Rajasthani Cell of BJP — who left the party and joined NCP has blamed the district president Jammu Puraswani as the reason for leaving the saffron party.
Shinde, who was said to be close to BJP’s MLA Kumar Ailani, was unhappy for getting dominated by Puraswani for the last few years.
In his resignation letter, Shinde blamed Puarswani for not concentrating on strengthening the party and giving preference in civic related tender work only and for also preferring selected people for posts in the party.
Both the leaders joined NCP under the leadership of NCP's newly appointed district president Pancham Kalani.
It is found since Pappu Kalani returned from jail on parole, Pappu has started strengthening NCP by getting his daughter-in-law Pancham into NCP from BJP along with 22 other corporators from the BJP into NCP.
Several attempts to contact Puraswani over the issue failed as his phone was not reachable.
However, BJP’s city spokesperson Pradeep Ramchandani said, “When elections come, such a situation arises in every party. It is not a big deal.”