NAGPUR: After the worst ever performance by the Congress party in elections to 10 city corporations in the state, a blame game by leaders over the debacle is now turning into a chorus for the ouster of Ashok Chavan as state Congress president.A senior leader has accused Chavan of having "joined hands with the BJP so that the government goes slow in the Adarsh inquiry as well as other allegations of irregularities against him"."Several important office-bearers of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress committee, including vice-president and former minister Nitin Raut have sought an urgent meeting of the MPCC to discuss the party debacle across the state in city corporations and zilla parishad elections," party spokesman Anant Gadgil told ToI on Saturday."Such a poor performance by the Congress is unimaginable. Chavan who exercised total power in distributing tickets in these elections deliberately fielded weak candidates ignoring pleas of senior members during the parliamentary board meeting to finalize nominees list," said a veteran Congress leader from the city. In Mumbai the Congress could win barely 31 of the 227 seats. The situation was no better in Pune, Nagpur or Solapur where the BJP had a sweeping win," said the leader."The whole sequence of events ever since he took over as MPCC president, point to the fact that he was under serious pressure from the BJP-led state government which pushed the CBI probe in Adarsh housing scam by getting fresh sanction from the governor to prosecute Chavan. Moreover, fresh cases of irregularities in granting mining leases granted by Chavan were also filed and used effectively by the ruling party to ensure he did little to revive the Congress down to its lows after 2014 drubbing in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections," a Congress leader told ToI.A ex-minister claimed he had kept party president Sonia Gandhi as well as vice-president Rahul Gandhi posted on the situation well before the civic elections. "Every one in party knows that Chavan did not get along well with Vilas Muttemwar and the two had an ugly public spat at the Yeshwant Stadium when the latter was city MP. Yet he teamed up with Muttemwar in finalizing tickets for NMC polls," pointed out another leader."The whole plan was to weaken the party position and allow easy win for the BJP. That is why they fielded Muslim candidates in non-Muslim areas and then Chavan launched the party campaign in city addressing a public rally in a Muslim-dominated area so as to alienate the Hindu votes across the city. That is also the reason BJP won more than 100 when even Gadkari was claiming they would manage to win 80 seats," the Congress leader alleged.When Sanjay Nirupam resigned in Mumbai owning responsibility for defeat and so did Vikas Thakre as Nagpur unit chief, why should Chavan not follow suit, the dissident leaders asked.

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