Drama as 4 NCP MLAs ‘rescued’ from Gurugram hotel

MUMBAI/GURUGRAM: Diminutive Sonia Doohan (28) looks like an unlikely hero, but the NCP national students’ wing president was entrusted with the “rescue operation” of four MLAs “taken” to a Gurugram five-star hotel on Saturday.

MLAs Daulat Daroda (Shahapur), Narhari Zirwal (Dindori), Nitin Pawar (Kalwan) and Anil Patil (Amalner) had been “missing” from the day Ajit Pawar was sworn in as deputy chief minister.

“Sharad Pawarsaheb received a message from one of them saying they were being held against their will,” said Doohan who was a student of Kurukshetra University. “We found 150 people guarding the hotel. We booked a room in the hotel and formed two teams of 100 people each to get them out,” she said. “It was a little scary as we feared there could be violence,” she said.

Following this dramatic “rescue”, the NCP has claimed that 51 of its 54 MLAs are back with the Sharad Pawar-led party.

Except Zirwal, who is unwell and has stayed on in Delhi, the other three are back in Mumbai.

Nitin Pawar managed to get out by Sunday evening after NCP party workers distracted the guards. Doohan said they managed to get the rest out when the guards outside the hotel took a dinner break at 10.30pm on Sunday. “We got them to the airport and took a flight at 2.40am,” she said.

Sources said the MLAs were taken by BJP workers for lunch on Sunday afternoon to Kingdom of Dreams and their movements were restricted and monitored.

“After establishing contact, we created a safety passage late on Sunday night and managed to rescue three of the MLAs through the gate meant for the hotel staff and took them to the airport. Zirwal could not be rescued though, and we had to launch a similar operation for him around 4am on Monday. There were some minor scuffles with BJP workers who had positioned themselves there along with some government officials in civil dress. There was misuse of official machinery in the entire episode by the BJP government,” alleged NCP youth president Dheeraj Sharma.

Terming the allegation “imaginary”, BJP’s Gurugram'district president Bhupinder Chauhan said, “How can anyone hold one hostage in a hotel? Who are these people who are claiming to have rescued these MLAs? All these claims are imaginary and nobody from BJP had any role to play in whatever took place at the hotel.”

Meanwhile, Patil told reporters in Mumbai that he had not gone missing or was abducted. “When we reached the hotel (in Delhi), at least 100-200 BJP workers were present there along with a lot of police cars and personnel in civil dress. We were scared,” he said.

Patil said they were initially unaware of what was happening and once they understood, they reached out to Sharad Pawar and told them they wanted to return and were with the party. Patil even took to Twitter to demostrate his support to the senior Pawar.

Nitin Pawar, MLA from Kalwan, said he supports the Sharad Pawar-led party and revealed they were taken to Delhi without knowing what was to happen there. There was a missing complaint filed for Pawar by his family members.

TOI met Babasaheb Patil, NCP’s Latur MLA who had managed to leave the same hotel on Sunday. “I was called to a meeting at Dhananjay Munde’s house and taken to the swearing-in. At that time I thought this was the party’s position. Then we were told we were being taken to a meeting out of town. So I called for my bags and we were flown to Gurugram,” he said. He phone was switched off so he only got to know about the controversy much later,” he said.

(With inputs by Joel Joseph)