Mumbai, July 30: In a major setback to the Opposition in Maharashtra, three MLAs of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and one Congress legislator resigned from the state assembly on Tuesday. NCP MLAs Vaibhav Pichad, Sandip Naik, Shivendra Raje and Congress MLA Kalidas Kolambkar submitted their resignations to the Speaker Haribhau Bagade. All four leaders are likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tomorrow.

The development comes months before assembly elections in the state. Last week, NCP’s Mumbai unit chief Sachin Ahir joined the Shiv Sena, a ruling alliance partner of the BJP. A day after Sachin Ahir had announced in Mumbai that he was joining the Shiv Sena, NCP’s state women wing chief Chitra Wagh said that she was quitting the Sharad Pawar-led party. NCP's Akole MLA Vaibhav Pichad had also announced that he was going to join the ruling BJP.

Earlier this month, BJP's newly-appointed Maharashtra unit chief Chandrakant Patil had claimed that some Congress and NCP MLAs would resign and join the ruling party within a week or 10 days. "There will be resignations of lot many Congress, NCP MLAs this week," Patil had told reporters. The NCP had exuded confidence that no one from the NCP was going to switch over to the BJP. Priyanka Chaturvedi Joins Shiv Sena After Quitting Congress, Uddhav Thackeray Welcomes Her. 

"They want to create confusion among the opposition rank and file. Their claims suggest they do not have candidates and hence, are trying to import candidates from other parties. No one from the NCP is going to defect (to the BJP)," NCP chief spokesperson Nawab Malik said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 30, 2019 12:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).