MUMBAI: Senior NCP leader and former deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal on Tuesday upped the ante against his party leader Ajit Pawar for denying him a place in the MahaYuti cabinet. Bhujbal said that he is not “a toy that anyone can play with”.
Discontent among the MahaYuti legislators who didn’t find place in the Devendra Fadnavis cabinet is growing, with disgruntled leaders expressing their anger against their respective party leaders.
Bhujbal said that he was not keen to contest the Assembly election and instead wanted to become as a Rajya Sabha member. However, the party did not pay any attention to his demand, he said.
“Now after denying a cabinet berth, the party is saying it will send me to the Rajya Sabha. For that, I have to resign as MLA. I do not want to do that because I just got elected and need to work for my people. Therefore, I had requested Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel to give me an opportunity to become a minister for a couple of years. But they didn’t listen. Am I a toy in their hands?” ” Bhujbal asked.
He said that when Sharad Pawar broke away from the Congress in 1999 he was asked by the Congress not to leave. “Sonia Gandhi wanted to make him chief minister once the Congress comes in power, but he took different decision.
“I am one of the senior and founder members of the NCP. However, when the cabinet expansion took place, I was neither asked nor consulted. Then I was surprisingly dropped. The way they treated me was humiliating and insulting. I have decided to listen to my people and then take the next course of action,” Bhujbal said.
Fadnavis expanded his cabinet in Nagpur on Sunday and inducted 39 new members in his team — 19 from the BJP, 11 from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and nine from Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).