How NCP’s student wing leader ‘rescued’ 4 MLAs from Gurgaon

Sonia Doohan, national president of the NCP’s student wing, played a major role in this process, said party leaders.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) succeeded in bringing back most of its rebel MLAs on Monday. Of the 52 MLAs the party claims to have the support of at the moment, four legislators were brought back from Gurgaon, Haryana. Sonia Doohan, national president of the NCP’s student wing, played a major role in this process, said party leaders.

Anil Patil is among the four NCP MLAs who were reportedly missing and were brought to Mumbai from Delhi by NCP leaders on Monday, November 25,2019. (ANI / Twitter)

Sonia was the one who was informed by the state NCP leaders about the possible whereabouts of the five missing NCP MLAs — Babasaheb Patil, Daulat Daroda, Anil Patil, Nitin Pawar and Narhari Zirwal — who were kept at Hotel Oberoi, Gurgaon. Sonia not only confirmed that the legislators were at the Gurgaon hotel, but also executed a two-day rescue operation. “I put our students on the job after I was called by one of our NCP leaders to check their whereabouts.We went to the hotel and found that some 100 people have been guarding it so that the legislators can’t be moved out. We booked a few rooms in the hotel and observed the activities for a day. We also took a few hotel staff in confidence and found a few ways which were being used only by them,” said Doohan, who came to Mumbai with the ‘rescued’ MLAs on Monday evening.

“Devesh Sharma, another NCP leader, and I had formed different teams comprising some 20 people. Dozens of others were also deployed outside the hotel to deal with any eventuality. We somehow brought out MLA Nitin Pawar on Sunday evening and later succeeded in bringing out the other three — Anil Patil, Daulat Daroda and Narhari Zirwal — by creating a diversion at night,” she said, without divulging the exact details of their plan.

According to her, the MLAs were kept on the fifth floor of the hotel in room numbers 5109, 5110, 5112 and 5113. The rooms were booked in the name of a person called Yadav. It was the legislators who called up NCP leaders and told them they were taken to Delhi, and that they did not know where the hotel was.

From the hotel, the MLAs were taken to NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s home at 6 Janpath in New Delhi. On Monday, they boarded a flight at 2.40pm from Delhi and reached Mumbai in the evening. Babasaheb Patil, who was also in the same hotel, said he wasn’t aware that Ajit Pawar had rebelled against the party and so he boarded a chartered flight to New Delhi on Saturday. He, however, said no one stopped him from leaving the hotel on Sunday afternoon. “We thought Pawarsaheb was in the loop and so we followed all the instructions given to us by Ajit dada. In the evening, we came to know what was happening with us and contacted Pawarsaheb at night. I also had a conversation with state president Jayant Patil,” Patil told HT.