Muslim face to lead NCP ahead of municipal elections

Khwaja Sharfoddin appointed as city president of NCP

Aurangabad, Dec 3:

A Muslim face has been appointed as the city president of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the run up to the municipal elections. Former corporator Khwaja Sharfoddin was handed over the appointment letter by NCP state president Jayant Patil this afternoon.

Sharfoddin won the corporator election from Sadatnagar, Silk mill Colony. In 2015, his wife was elected. Earlier, Sharfoddin himself had been elected by a good margin of votes and had done a lot of development work in the ward. Senior leaders of NCP including city working president Abhishek Deshmukh, state general secretary Mushtaq Ahmed, former MLA Bhausaheb Patil Chikatgaonkar, Suraj Chavan, former district president Sudhakar Sonwane, city vice president Mohammad Habib and others were present.

Salve tenders resignation

The three-year term of the former city president Vijay Salve was two months away from completion. But there were complaints from the beginning about his working style. First the argument with Mushtaq Ahmed, then disputes with adv Chandrakant Thombre escalated instead of decreasing. For the past month, some leaders in the party had been working hard to remove him from the post. Commenting on the issue Salve said that this morning I tendered my resignation to the state president Patil in Mumbai. I have also denied the post of state vice-president, said Salve.

State president's displeasure

Jayant Patil was in Aurangabad on November 29. He wanted to take up the issues of the city and meet local officials. A message was also sent to all paty leaders. However, Salve and Kadir Maulana were not present at the meeting. The matter definitely bothered the state president.

Challenge to tackle MIM

MIM has posed a good challenge to the Congress-NCP in Aurangabad. With the Muslim vote bank shifting to MIM, the Congress-NCP had suffered a lot. It will be interesting to see how he tackles this challenge.