Kokate ouster huge setback for NCP, Ajit had no cards left to play

Having a minister resign in the middle of local body polls does not bode well for the party: NCP leader

- Shailesh Gaikwad

MUMBAI: There was no sparing Manikrao Kokate ~ Ajit Pawar was simply out of chips, for now.

Asa result, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by him has suffered the embarrassment of having two ministers dropped from the state cabinet, within just nine months of each other. Both stepped down in connection with criminal cases, a political liability the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance chose not to shoulder.

In March this year, then agriculture minister Dhananjay Munde resigned from the cabinet after a close aide, Walmik Karad, was arrested in connection with the brutal murder of Santosh Deshmukh, a village sarpanch in Beed district.

Now Kokate, who was minister for sports, youth welfare and minority affairs, has resigned. He took this step a day after an arrest warrant was issued by a Nashik court, in a case relating to the fraudulent allotment of a flat under the EWS quota. Kokate has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, a sentence upheld by the Nashik Sessions Court on Tuesday.