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Sonia rebuffs Pawar, sends Prataprao Bhosle as MPCC chief

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has appointed Prataprao Bhosle as president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee and dropped action against ten MLAs who were allegedly responsible for the defeat of party nominee R D Pradhan in last month's Rajya Sabha election.

Party spokesman Ajit Jogi told mediapersons today that Bhosle's appointment would be with immediate effect and the appointment letter had already been despatched by AICC general secretary Madhavrao Scindia.

Observers said the leadership has done a balancing act by appointing Bhosle, who is not very close to Sharad Pawar, as PCC president and dropping action against ten legislators and accepting their explanation.

Scindia wrote to them to be cautious in future by not allowing their signatures to be used in any unauthorised fashion as happened in the Rajya Sabha election. The MLAs have explained that they signed the blank nomination forms in good faith as they thought is the normal practice. Scindia said it was unfortunate that without any clearance from the AICC, the forms were used to support the nomination of Arun Mehta who had recently resigned from the Congress to fight the MLC election as an independent candidate.

UNI

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