Dhobale all set to walk out of NCP

PUNE/PANDHARPUR: While senior NCP leader and exdeputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal''s disenchantment with the NCP is an open secret, it is now the turn of another NCP leader to send disturbing signals that he is unhappy with his alienation within the party.
NCP leader and former state higher education minister Laxmanrao Dhobale appears all set to quit the party due to his widening differences with deputy chief minister Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil.
Dhobale, who lost the recent Lok Sabha elections, told TNN on Tuesday that he was contemplating leaving the NCP as he was "fed up with the illtreatment meted out to him".
He said he was being sidelined in the party and his supporters and loyalists were pressing him to take a "decisive step".
Dhobale said, while he was in touch with both the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress, he was inclined to join the Dalit parties like the BSP or the Republican Party of India''s Athavale faction (RPI-A).
State BSP chief Vilas Garud confirmed that Dhobale had contacted BSP supremo Mayawati and the central leadership for entry into the party and that things were likely to be clear during Mayawati''s state tour from August 15 to 21.
A fiery orator, Dhobale (51) is an influential leader of the Matang community and a four-term MLA from Mangalwedha in Solapur district. He lost in the recently-held Lok Sabha elections from the Osmanabad constituency against Shiv Sena''s Kalpana Narhire by a slender margin of 1,649 votes.
Dhobale''s defeat gave rise to charges that it was the Maratha lobby,which had engineered his downfall because he was opposed to Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil.
Dhobale quit his cabinet post soon after his defeat. Subsequently, Karmala MLA and minister of state Digambar Bagal, a Mohite-Patil supporter, was also dropped in the recent cabinet pruning, ostensibly for not co-operating with Dhobale during election time.
Matters between Dhobale and Mohite-Patil became worse during the 1999 by-elections for the Solapur Lok Sabha constituency, when Dhobale actively canvassed for Congressman Anandrao Deokate against Mohite-Patil''s brother, Pratapsinh, who was contesting on a BJP ticket. Pratapsinh''s victory over Deokate — a staunch supporter of chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde — was attributed to the deliberate mischief played by the NCP in Solapur district.