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The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a key ally of the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre, has started preparing for the Lok Sabha elections due next year. The party, which had dropped six ministers on Tuesday, on Saturday appointed former minister Bhaskar Jadhav chief of its Maharashtra unit. It also appointed firebrand legislator Jitendra Avad as working president, a new post.
NCP has set an ambitious target of increasing its tally of Lok Sabha seats from eight to 15. It also aims to increase its count of assembly seats from 62 to 100. NCP is expected to contest 22 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats and 117 of the 288 assembly seats.
The party has come up with a time-bound plan to bring representatives of Dalits and backward classes, minorities, women and youth, under its fold, ahead of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections.
The appointments of Jadhav and Avad are part of the party’s plan to promote young leaders, especially as state units of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are headed by youth leaders.
Earlier, Jadhav had drawn criticism for hosting a lavish wedding in February, a time when many parts of the state were under severe drought. Avad is known to be tracking the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.
NCP has formed a 12-member core group comprising former ministers, former state party chiefs and senior women leaders. Each member of the core group would be assigned some Lok Sabha and assembly seats and he/she would be responsible for these constituencies.
At on Saturday’s meeting, party chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar ridiculed the BJP for making tall claims. The BJP, he said, had been exposed after its leader L K Advani projected a sorry state of affairs in the party. Against this backdrop, Pawar said the responsibility of progressive parties, including the NCP, had increased.
Pawar’s close confidant and Union Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel cautioned the NCP’s standing in state and national politics wouldn’t improve unless it won more seats. He underlined the need for collective efforts and recalled the party had taken a beating due to overconfidence and the misjudgement of certain leaders in the past.
NCP’s moves come in the wake of a possible split between the BJP and the JD(U), as well as efforts by various regional parties to form a federal front.
Recent pre-poll surveys have predicted a poor performance by the NCP in the Lok Sabha elections. The surveys showed NCP’s tally of Lok Sabha seats might fall from eight to four. The expected fall was attributed to the alleged involvement of NCP ministers in various scams, rising differences between Sharad Pawar and his nephew and state deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and the widening gap between leaders and the party’s rank and file.
