Four Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLAs from Maharashtra — Narhari Zhirwal, Daulat Daroda, Anil Patil and Nitin Pawar — were “rescued” by the party’s youth wing members from a five-star hotel in Gurugram in the early hours of Monday and flown back to Mumbai.
The four were “misled” and kept at the hotel by BJP workers “against their will”, claimed NCP youth wing national president Dheeraj Sharma.
Speaking to The Hindu over phone, Mr. Sharma claimed that local sources informed them about the presence of four legislators at The Oberoi in Gurugram and they were then “rescued” after a minor clash with the police and the BJP workers.
“The four legislators told us they were kept inside the hotel against their will and were themselves planning to escape. The legislators claimed that they were misled into believing that it was the decision of NCP president Sharad Pawar to support the BJP, but they got to know the truth through media and they wanted to return to the party fold,” said Mr. Sharma.
Earlier, Mr. Daroda had been reported missing.
The four were flown to Mumbai around 2 a.m. “All four are now at Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai. We reached Mumbai at 4 a.m.,” said Mr. Sharma.
Gurugram Shiv Sena president Ritu Raj claimed that his party was also part of the “rescue operation”. The police and bouncers were present at the hotel and the Shiv Sainiks were not allowed inside, he alleged. “Still we managed to sneak inside, but a senior BJP leader identified us and directed the police to throw us out,” Mr. Raj said.
BJP spokesperson Raman Malik refused to comment saying that he was not “aware of the incident”.
