Navalkar, along with MLC and party leader Ravindra Mirlekar and others were gheraoed while the latter even had to bear the brunt of the unruly behaviour of the 400-odd party workers. The strong protests came a day after Babar was declared as the party candidate for the Haveli seat.

The party workers, many of them women, gheraoed Navalkar and raised loud slogans against Babar. Their main demand was to reverse the decision of Babar's renomination and instead give the candidature to Dhumal, senior party worker and president of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Transporters' Association. Dhumal himself led the protests when Navalkar arrived in his car at the Ramsmruti Mangal Karyalaya in Bhosari around 11.45 am.

Navalkar urged the party workers not to raise slogans but the request went unheeded. He later suggested that a few party workers discuss the issue with him. Accordingly Navalkar, Mirlekar, Dhumal and others drove to a hotel and held discussions. Navalkar has asked Dhumal to meet him at the circuit house in Pune tomorrow. While Dhumal agreed to meet the latter, he still maintained that the party rally will not be allowed to be held. Navalkar, angered over the behaviour of the party workers, left in a haste and proceeded to Pune.

The agitated party workers in Bhosari abused supporters of Babar and even threatened them to move out of the hall. Mirlekar who earlier had tried to pacify the party workers was pulled down from the stage. They shouted slogans against Babar.

Dhumal later warned that the party workers will work against Babar in the election and defeat him. He charged that Babar had never taken the party workers in confidence in the last five years and had not done any significant work in Haveli. Ram Ubale, former president of the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, who was also in the forefront in the protests, said that Babar was clandestinely working with the Congress and had even shared the dais with Chaggan Bhujbal during a public function in Chinchwad.

Later after the protesting workers had left the place, Babar addressed party workers and maintained that his renomination was the outcome of his work in the constituency. Babar who had defeated Congress candidate Ramkrishna More by around 8000 votes in the last election, asserted that he would win by a comfortable margin of over 50,000 votes. He said that he had maintained a good rapport with the rural electorate in the constituency. Winning in Haveli, which falls in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency, is not an easy task, he added.

Referring to the protests, he said that opposition should be made on ideological terms and not by physical actions. He said that the protests would die down and subsequently all the party workers would work for him in the election.