Mumbai: Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan resigned from the party on Monday. He is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In a letter to state Congress president Nana Patole, Chavan (65) said he was quitting the ‘Grand Old Party’. He also submitted his resignation as an MLA to Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar. Chavan’s exit from Congress comes days after the departure of senior Maharashtra Congress leaders Baba Siddique and Milind Deora.
Senior Congress leader Milind Deora, Baba Siddique join NDA
Deora’s family has been associated with Congress for over five decades and his father Murli Deora was one of the tallest leaders of the state. Former Maharashtra minister and senior Congress leader Baba Siddique, who ended his association with the Congress after nearly five-decade recently, joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the presence of Ajit Pawar in Mumbai on Saturday. Siddique had quit the Congress, ending his 48-year-long relationship with the party, on February 8. Though he did not cite any reason for his decision to quit, he had said that there was a lot to express but “some things are better left unsaid”, in an apparent dig at the party.
Adarsh housing scam
Chavan had succeeded Vilasrao Deshmukh as Maharashtra Chief Minister in December 2008 and was forced to resign in November 2010 in the wake of the Adarsh housing scam. He was president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) from 2014 to 2019.
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