‘I’m safe’: NCP leader who was reported ‘missing’ after Maharashtra twist

A legislator of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from Maharashtra’s Shahapur constituency, Daulat Daroda, who was reported missing by one of his colleagues, surfaced on Sunday.

Pandurang Barora, the NCP’s former member of legislative assembly (MLA), had filed a missing person’s complaint with the Shahapur police station on Saturday.

Barora had said Daroda had gone missing after he visited Raj Bhavan in Mumbai on Saturday when the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Devendra Fadnavis and NCP leader Ajit Pawar took the oath of office as the chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively.

“I am safe. I have come after winning the election on the clock symbol (NCP’s), so there’s no question of changing the party,” Daulat Daroda was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

“Whatever decision Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar take, I’m with that. Don’t believe in any rumours,” Daroda said.

The police had not registered Barora’s complaint and said that Daroda was in Mumbai.

Daroda was one of the five MLAs who was said to be missing on Saturday after Devendra Fadnavis took oath as Maharashtra’s chief minister with the help of NCP’s Ajit Pawar.

Ajit Pawar, the nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, said claimed that he had the support of all the 54 MLAs of his party. The senior Pawar, however, distanced himself from his nephew’s dramatic action, saying the decision to back Fadnavis was his personal choice and not that of the party.

Jayant Patil, the NCP’s chief of Maharashtra unit, had said that 42 of the party’s 54 MLAs could be accounted for while seven others could not reach on time. He had said five MLAs were missing.