Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders and workers observed gaddar din (traitor’s day) in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra to mark the first anniversary of the rebellion by Shiv Sena legislators, including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Led by NCP working president and Lok Sabha member Supriya Sule, the party workers in Mumbai shouted slogans and carried symbolic khoke (cartons) to claim the rebel legislators took money to come to power in the state.
The rebellion in June last year led by Eknath Shinde culminated in the collapse of the then Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government, comprising the Sena, NCP and Congress.
On June 30, 2022, Shinde became the chief minister along with Devendra Fadnavis of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as deputy CM. On Tuesday, the NCP workers along with Sule gathered at their party office in south Mumbai to stage a protest.
Sule and others shouted slogans like Pannas (50) Khoke, Ekdum Ok, to allege that the rebel legislators had taken Rs 50 crore each as bribe. In neighbouring Thane, which is also the home town of CM Shinde, NCP leader and former minister Jitendra Awhad led a similar protest. The NCP workers piled up several cartons with Pannas Khoke, Ekdum Ok stickers on them at a spot and later burnt them as a mark of protest.
Maharashtra NCP president Jayant Patil last week asked the party cadres to protest against the rebel Shiv Sena legislators. NCP workers should organise protests in the nook and corner of the state by displaying symbolic khoke (boxes of money) based on which the Eknath Shinde government has come to power, he said on Saturday.
Patil appealed to NCP workers to tell people that the temporary happiness of the Shinde camp, which was recognised by the Election Commission as real Shiv Sena, is on the wane and their days in government are numbered. The Sharad Pawar-led party had earlier organised public meetings explaining the Supreme Court verdict on the political crisis in Maharashtra and how speaker Rahul Narvekar is duty-bound to disqualify 16 rebel MLAs.