Sanjay Nirupam quashes ‘baseless speculation’ of leaving Congress after Ashok Chavan's exit

livemint.com:

Milind Deora, Baba Siddique, and Ashok Chavan. Ashok Chavan, who resigned from the primary membership of the party on Monday, is likely to join the BJP on February 15. There is conjecture that his resignation is set to trigger large-scale defections from MLAs.

These are all baseless speculation and rumours, Sanjay Nirupam wrote on microblogging site X, formerly known as Twitter. On Monday, after Ashok Chavan announced his exit from Congress, Sanjay Nirupam claimed that the former chief minister of Maharashtra was upset with the working style of a Congress leader from Maharashtra. "Ashok Chavan was definitely an asset for the party.

Some are calling him a liability, some are holding ED responsible, all this is a hasty reaction. He was basically very upset with the working style of a leader from Maharashtra," Nirupam said in a post on 'X'. "He (Chavan) had given this information to the top leadership from time to time.

Had their complaints been taken seriously, this situation would not have happened," Nirupam added. Ashok Chavan, who was being investigated in the Adarsh scam, is a mass leader who also enjoys the support of most Congress MLAs. He has his own set of loyalists in the party, and it is speculated that they are likely to announce their decision in the days to come.

While Amarnath Rajurkar, a former member of the legislative council, resigned from the Congress soon after Chavan’s resignation, the names of around 18 other MLAs are doing the rounds, reports Hindustan Times. The report further states Among the names doing the rounds are Jitesh Antapurkar, Mohan Hambarde and Madhavrao Pawar from Nanded, Amit Deshmukh and Dhiraj Deshmukh from Latur and Vijay Wadettiwar. Included in the ones who are rumoured to be on