NCP comes up with 50% fresh faces, drops heavyweights Bhujbal and Walse Patil

MUMBAI: Buoyed by its success in the recently concluded Maharashtra assembly elections, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP not only inducted five fresh faces but also dropped three senior leaders—Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse Patil and Dharamraobaba Atram. Ajit warned the MLAs to perform and not to come to him with excuses for their underperformance. The party leadership is said to be unhappy with the performance of the senior leaders in the assembly polls.

As many as 22 days after winning the assembly polls with flying colours, the formation of the Mahayuti 2.0 government was completed with the NCP getting 10 of the 43 berths in the ministerial council. Of these, the party chose to induct 50% fresh faces—Narhari Zirwal, Makarand Patil, Babasaheb Patil, Manikrao Kokate and Indranil Naik. Naik is a minister of state in the new government while the rest are cabinet ministers.

Apart from Bhujbal, Walse Patil and Atram, the NCP has dropped Anil Patil and Sanjay Bansode from the list of ministers. Bhujbal and Patil have been ministers in successive governments over the past three decades while Patil and Bansode got the opportunity only after the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government.

The party is trying to rehabilitate Walse Patil by asking for a gubernatorial position for him, and this has upset Bhujbal even more. He chose to skip the party gathering organised to felicitate the newly elected MLAs, leading to speculation.

With a limited number of berths, the party has also tried to maintain regional and caste balance but has chosen western Maharashtra, where it got the maximum number of seats, over all the other regions. Four ministers—Hasan Mushrif, Dattatray Bharne, Makarand Patil and Ajit himself—are from the region. North Maharashtra has two representations—Narhari Zirwal and Manikrao Kokate—while Konkan, Vidarbha and Marathwada have one representation each with Aditi Tatkare, Indranil Naik and Babasaheb Patil.

The party has also ensured a balanced caste equation with three Maratha faces (Makarand Patil, Babasaheb Patil, Manikrao Kokate), one Muslim (Hasan Mushrif), one Vanjari-OBC (Dhananjay Munde), one Dhangar-OBC (Dattatray Bharne), one Yadav OBC (Aditi Tatkare) and Scheduled Castes (Narhari Zirwal and Indranil Naik).

“Those who become ministers because of the party are also expected to contribute,” Ajit told party leaders in a gathering held in Nagpur on Sunday. “Do not come to me with excuses and complaints. If you are busy with other things and cannot give the desired amount of time to the party, a decision could be taken. This applies to me as well.”