Leader of Maharashtra Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Jayant Patil that the group led by Ajit Pawar has no right to remove him from the post. Additionally, he stated that Sharad Pawar, the party's leader, has the support of all 53 NCP MLAs.
The Ajit Pawar group replaced Jayant Patil as president of the Maharashtra NCP with Sunil Tatkare a day earlier. Additionally, it requested that Jayant Patil and Jitendra Awhad be denied the right to vote in the Maharashtra Assembly.
Hours before Jayant Patil was replaced by the Ajit Pawar camp, NCP chief Sharad Pawar had removed the party's working president Praful Patel and general secretary Tatkare for engaging in anti-party activities.
The action was taken against Patel and Tatkare after they attended the swearing-in ceremony of Ajit Pawar who took oath as deputy chief minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP cabinet on Sunday, while eight NCP MLAs joined as ministers.
The faction led by (Ajit Pawar) is a Notionalist Party. They have no right to remove me from the post (of NCP state unit president), Jayant Patil told reporters. He also said he had taken action against the nine MLAs who have joined the government.
Sharad Pawar-led NCP had moved a petition before Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar seeking the disqualification of Ajit Pawar and eight other MLAs.
All MLAs are with us and you will know tomorrow, Jayant Patil claimed. The Ajit Pawar camp in a letter submitted to Raj Bhavan had claimed that they have the support of 40 MLAs of NCP.