Following the Lok Sabha election, the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (SP) is reeling from a series of tremors with promising leaders from the party’s Youth Wing quitting the NCP (SP).
On Tuesday, Sonia Duhan, the national president of the NCP (SP)’s student wing, quit the party, attributing her decision to problems with Supriya Sule, the party’s national working president.
Ms. Duhan had come to prominence in 2019, when she, along with the (undivided) NCP’s youth wing president Dheeraj Sharma, had ‘quelled’ current Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s rebellion at the time.
Ms. Duhan’s exit follows that of Dheeraj Sharma, who recently joined the rebel NCP faction led by Mr. Ajit Pawar, who is aligned with the ruling Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti government.
“I haven’t left Sharad Pawar. He has been and will remain, our leader…but despite serving Mr. Pawar with dedication and loyalty for several years, what kind of treatment are we getting now? Supriya Sule should think why leaders who have been associated with Sharad Pawar for decades are today leaving the party. I am saying with full responsibility that I am leaving the party because of Supriya Sule’s leadership and the people around her who are making decisions. We do not see her as our future leader,” said Ms. Duhan, who hails from Haryana.
In a rebuke to Ms. Sule, the MP of Baramati, Ms. Duhan said a party did not work merely by putting selfies on social media.
“Supriya Sule should understand this. I will not get into specifics of my problems with her, but she should think why people like myself and Dheeraj Sharma are exiting. We are not leaving Pawar saaheb but Supriya Sule. She should introspect what is lacking in her,” Ms. Duhan said, while rejecting suggestions of joining the rival Ajit Pawar-led faction.
The exit of prominent youth leaders from Mr. Sharad Pawar’s party is ironic given that almost immediately after his nephew, Mr. Ajit Pawar, split the NCP in July last year, the 83-year-old Mr. Pawar, in a massive show of strength in Satara, had claimed that he and his faction had overwhelming youth support and that the “defectors would be put in their place in the elections”.
Soon after his nephew rebellion, Mr. Sharad Pawar had promoted Ms. Duhan by putting her in charge of the NCP central office in New Delhi.
Throughout the run-up to the Lok Sabha, which concluded on May 20 in five phases in Maharashtra, the 83-year-old leader had laid strong emphasis had been on problems facing the youth and a renascence of his NCP though young leaders.
Ms. Duhan became a known face when in 2019 when she helped queer the pitch for Mr. Ajit Pawar’s revolt at the time.
Maharashtra was taken by surprise after the 2019 Assembly poll when the then Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari swore in Mr. Fadnavis as the Chief Minister and Mr. Ajit Pawar as Deputy Chief Minister on the morning of November 23, 2019.
However, the government had lasted for just three days after a number of MLAs sided with Mr. Sharad Pawar.
Ms. Duhan had done her bit in helping Mr. Sharad Pawar when she brought back four MLAs (who had initially sided with Mr. Ajit Pawar) holed in a hotel in Gurugram to Mr. Pawar’s home in Delhi.
Published - May 28, 2024 10:23 pm IST