Maha Dy CM Ajit Pawar Appoints Sameer Bhujbal as Mumbai Chief of His Faction of NCP

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar has appointed Sameer Bhujbal, nephew of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal, as the new chief of the Mumbai unit of his faction of the party.

While the fight over the “real NCP” – the one belonging to NCP supremo Sharad Pawar or Ajit Pawar – is pending in court, Ajit Pawar has made the appointment keeping the upcoming Mumbai civic elections in mind.

The NCP doesn’t have a strong hold over Mumbai. Before the split in his party, this responsibility was given to leaders such as Sachin Ahir and Sanjay Patil, but none could make a mark in Mumbai.

At the time of the split, Nawab Malik was the head of the Mumbai unit. After Malik’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case, the post was vacant. When Malik came out on bail, he preferred to remain neutral instead of picking between Pawar senior and Ajit Pawar.

Sameer, meanwhile, is a former MP from Nashik, who learnt the politics from his uncle. He is in-charge of getting the party’s maximum corporators elected to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

According to sources in the Ajit Pawar camp, the deputy CM has taken the local body elections, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), seriously and asked all leaders to start their work.

Source also revealed that Shivajirao Nalawade, a close aide of Chhagan Bhujbal, was interested in the post, but the inter-party protest led to Bhujbal being picked.

Sameer was arrested in 2015 in money laundering and siphoning off funds and causing a loss of Rs 840 crore loss to the government exchequer. The allegation against him was that he accepted the cash in lieu for awarding projects to the contractors and then further channelled it to organisations over whom his family and he had control. In 2018, he was released on bail by the Bombay high Court.

Chhagan Bhujbal used to contest the state assembly polls from Byculla, but after leaving the Shiv Sena, he defeated then Shiv Sena candidate Bala Nandgaonkar from the same constituency. He later started to contest from Yeola constituency in Nashik.

With Sameer as the Mumbai head of the NCP, it is being said that Chhagan Bhujbal may now be active in the city politics again.