Nagpur: There is widespread dismay and discontent among MLAs and senior leaders of all three constituents of the Mahayuti for being excluded from the cabinet that finally got some shape on Sunday after much delay. As the winter session of the state assembly commenced here on Monday, senior leaders, including former deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal, former finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and ex-health minister Tanaji Sawant, have openly expressed their ire.
“They have not picked me or dumped me, it’s the same,” said Bhujbal as he interacted with media in the Vidhan Bhavan premises before packing off to Nashik, skipping the legislative proceedings. “They cannot finish Bhujbal,’’ he added seething with anger. A known fighter and the topmost OBC leader of the state, he was the first to defect from Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena during another winter session in Nagpur two decades ago.
“I have been rewarded for taking on Maratha reservation activist Manoj Jarane Patil. Now I will go back to Yeola (his constituency) and consult my supporters and the Phule Samata Parishad for further course of action,” the Mali leader said.
Bhujbal was one of the seniormost leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party from the day Sharad Pawar founded the party in 1999, and held prominent posts in Congress-NCP governments. After the NCP split, he went with the Ajit Pawar faction. All through the agitation by Jarange Patil, Bhujbal stood solidly opposing any move to share the OBC reservation pie with Marathas. Bhujbal claims that he was offered membership of the Rajya Sabha about a week ago. “But I am no longer interested in that. I can not desert my voters who elected me from Yeola with a good margin,’ said Bhujbal.
A senior BJP leader representing the Ballarpur assembly constituency in the Chandrapur district of Vidarbha, Mungantiwar has been one of the strongest voices in the state legislature for over a decade. In Fadnavis’ earlier government in 2014-19, he had held the coveted post of finance minister and presented the state budgets. “Till Saturday I was told by state party president, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, that my name is in list of ministers, but on Sunday it was missing,” said Mungantiwar who did not attend the Vidhan Sabha on the opening day and instead spent time consulting his mentor and Union roads and transport minister Nitin Gadkari at his residence. Sources say that Mungantiwar incurred the wrath of the BJP central leadership for vehemently opposing the induction of Kishor Jorgewar, the then sitting independent MLA from Chandrapur, into BJP as their official candidate for the 2024 elections.
Former minister Tanaji Sawant of Shiv Sena also left Nagpur in a huff for his Pune home, barely concealing his anger for not being included in the new cabinet in which 33 ministers were inducted by governor Gopalkrishnan at Raj Bhavan. A fuming Vijay Shivtare, a fourth term Sena MLA from Purandar blamed caste politics for being kept out of the new ministry. “I am my party’s only MLA from Pune district, yet I was ignored,” he erupted. Ravi Rana, an independent MLA from Badnera who supports the Mahayuti, said his ministerial hopes were dashed as he returned to his constituency.